


Perfect Ache

by whiskeyandspite



Category: John Wick (Movies), Polar (2019)
Genre: Assassins, Bathing, Door Sex, Established Relationship, First Time, Flashbacks, Flirting, Fluff, Hunting, M/M, Mentions of PTSD, Oral Sex, Quickies, Retirement, Rough Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Teasing, WIP, bad singing, chores and mundane things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-04-05 22:48:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 31,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19050040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: “It’s open season for deer,” Duncan shrugged. “If you wanted something legal. Bow and arrow only.”John snorted. “Can you even aim with one eye in your head?”“Scared you won’t hold a bow with a broken hand?” John glanced at him with a smirk, didn’t say anything else. Duncan received the answer with a smile. “I have a spare.”“Hand?”John and Duncan met a while back, started this a while back, and are now tired, trying to beretired, and always adorable. This chapter is SFW.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [southoffebruary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/southoffebruary/gifts).



> The wonderful [Lonesomevillain](https://lonesomevillain.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr posted this most lovely thing: 
> 
> "I absolutely NEED an action movie where Keanu Reeves and Mads Mikkelsen make an old hitman couple omg
> 
> Just imagine the two sweetest and nicest actors out there who are fantastic and sexy in fight scenes fighting side by side and being domestic like
> 
> Imagine the interviews"
> 
> Unfortunately since I don't do RPF, I went with John Wick and Duncan Vizla, the two actors' respective assassin personas. This is honestly just a drabble dump of love for me. I'm entirely too invested in these two. More chapters coming. Ideas for more chapters welcome. I don't think this will have plot. ...yet.

“John.”

It was early. Cold, beyond the blankets. The light reflecting off the snow outside sharpened the contrast of everything in the room and John turned his head further into the pillow. Against his back, canine footfalls, scratching, as Dog made himself comfortable.

“John.”

“What.”

“I told you I don’t want the dog on the bed.”

“I didn’t put him there, tell him yourself.”

The weight in the bed shifted, a groan, soft, and Duncan muttered something in a language John was too tired to bother parsing. Danish, probably. Duncan’s go-to when sleepy, injured, or post-coital. John didn’t stir when he felt Dog further up the bed, despite the gentle scolding. He didn’t bother to try and hide his smile when Duncan settled in again moments later with a sigh and Dog’s entire body wiggled in delight.

This was an old argument. John was fairly sure it was Duncan’s distinct way of showing affection to them both, now. When Dog settled, John reached blindly for the man next to him, coarse fingers catching against his shirt.

“Go the fuck to sleep.”

“I was asleep.”

“Good.”

Duncan’s hand settled over his, drawing gently over the bumps of John’s knuckles, again and again. Neither stayed awake much longer after that.

When next John woke, it was to the smell of coffee. Dog wasn’t on the bed anymore.

He took his time getting up, stretching carefully, feeling for any new pains in his tortured body before sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He could get used to this. He had been used to this. Lazy mornings with nothing to think about except what he and Helen would do that day, the next day, the next.

Retirement.

So much for how well that turned out.

With a groan, John dropped his feet to the cool wooden floor, seeking for his socks and tugging them on before standing. The house was quiet around him, due as much to its size as its location in the middle of nowhere. Duncan’s final safe-house. He took his time leaving the bedroom, meandering through the bathroom, down the hallway, down the stairs.

Dog greeted him like a tank to the shins.

“Hund.”

“He’s fine.”

“You’re not.”

John couldn’t argue that. He accepted his mug of coffee with a hum and moved to join Duncan in leaning against the counter. Two weeks since Winston. Two weeks since the Bowery. Two weeks since shit had gone to hell, again. Two weeks since he’d found Duncan, through old channels, and thanked whatever higher power could possibly exist that he’d disregarded John’s Excommunication price. _Don’t need the fucking money,_ he’d said over the phone. _House is still standing if you want to crash._

So John had crashed.

They hadn’t talked about it. They hadn’t done anything but rest and recover.

“Is it worth even bothering to eat today?” John muttered, eyes in the middle distance, his injured finger tapping absently against his cup. Duncan shrugged.

“Dog’s eaten.”

John snorted. “You’ve become soft.”

“I didn’t even like dogs before you brought one into my house.”

“You let me.” John countered. He finished his coffee and ran a hand over his face. “You still hunt out this way?”

“On occasion. Been too long since you killed something?”

“Shut up.”

“Do you care for game or equipment?”

“Either,” John dropped his chin against his chest. He just needed to move. To get out. To feel like himself again. More often than not, lately, that meant killing.

“It’s open season for deer,” Duncan shrugged. “If you wanted something legal. Bow and arrow only.”

John snorted. “Can you even aim with one eye in your head?”

“Scared you won’t hold a bow with a broken hand?” John glanced at him with a smirk, didn’t say anything else. Duncan received the answer with a smile. “I have a spare.”

“Hand?”

It didn’t take John long to dress - his suits forsaken after the first week when he didn’t see the point in arguing for their sake - and he slung one of Duncan’s scarves around his neck before kneeling to take Dog’s fat head in his hands.

“You stay home,” he said. This wasn’t a hunting dog. John wouldn’t forgive himself if he lost his companion on the plains to a swift deer kick or his own wavering aim. “Stay home by the fire. Good dog.”

Dog just grinned, turned his head to Duncan when he came in and wiggled his backside as his tail wagged. Duncan just raised his eyebrows at him, dropped his hand for Dog to lick when John let him go.

They didn’t take the car. Rather they walked, leaving a trail of their prints behind them, quivers and bows across their backs. It took time, both still exhausted and aching from their own poor experiences. John had lost count of how many bones he had broken in the last month alone; he didn’t know which had managed to heal from the last time he’d injured himself. He was a walking jigsaw with pieces that no longer fit; bloated by alcohol and bad decisions.

He saw the deer first, picking its way softly through the crunchy frozen grass. John just watched it through the fog of his own breath, watched it drop its nose against the hard earth, watched it and didn’t pull his bow from his shoulder. Next to him, Duncan barely moved. They just stood there, looking, long enough that their fingers froze and their lips trembled in the cool light. Then the deer moved on. Moments later, so did they.

Neither spoke because neither needed to. They’d rarely spoken much on a good day, both men far from verbose. They just were, sharing space, sharing a hunt. For them, there was little else that was more intimate.

The next deer wasn’t as lucky as the first, and both silently parted ways to stalk it from different vantages. John slipped the tab to his fingers, flexed them and winced. He’d never have proper strength in his dominant hand again. A sacrifice in service of a table he was now under, after being bent over it. He nocked an arrow, sunk to one knee to aim and cursed silently as his entire arm ran with electricity at the pain of it. He adjusted to a Mongolian draw; drew back with his thumb instead.

It had been years since John had used a manual bow and arrow, especially one so primitive as this. Wooden riser, recurve bow. He’d owned more advanced things in his youth. He’d owned crossbows in the past, too, but never favored them. This felt like returning to the most basic of training, the simplest of means. A man in the wild with nothing but himself.

He released two breaths before he loosed the arrow and didn’t lower the bow until the deer staggered in the snow. Another arrow, moments later, dropped it, motionless, to the ground. Even with Sofia, John had felt a certain wariness with having her armed and near him, her dogs on alert for the slightest wrong move. He hadn’t feared Duncan the first time they’d found their guns side by side on a bedside table. He didn’t fear him now.

John remained kneeling, watched as Duncan made his way to their kill, bent to check its pulse, pulled a knife from his boot to give it its final mercy. John tugged the tab from his fingers absently with his teeth and pocketed it. He pushed himself to stand only when the heat of the animal’s innards steamed in the snow, curling just over Duncan's shoulders. By the time he approached, Duncan had gutted the deer, scooped the offal out. John knew he’d use every part of the animal when they brought it home. Smoke the meat, tan the hide.

Bones for Dog.

John was too used to the sight of bloodied hands to be indifferent to seeing Duncan’s that way, so he moved to find a branch to help them carry the deer home.

Winter brought night faster here than New York. It was welcome. John wasn’t sure he had the patience for longer days after what had happened recently. He followed in Duncan’s footsteps as they made their slow way home, stepping where he stepped, carrying the branch on the opposite shoulder to the man in front of him, for better balance. By the time they reached the house, it was cold enough to leave the carcass under a thin dusting of snow for the night, to work on tomorrow.

At the door, Dog greeted them with whines and insistent pawing. It was Duncan who bent first, this time, to let Dog lick his face, murmuring kind words to him in Danish; reassurances, reminders. John closed the door behind him and leaned against it, slipping the bow and quiver over his head to set them aside. By the time Dog came to him, John was asleep on his feet.

“If you’re going to sleep like a horse, you should eat like one,” Duncan said. John could feel the corners of his mouth raise but didn’t reply. He’d eat if Duncan ate.

Dog, however, he was sure to feed properly after he’d let him out. John sunk to the floor beside him and watched him gobble up his meal, licking the bowl and nosing it around the floor when it was empty. He accepted his heavy head against his lap when Dog was done.

“Good boy.”

“John.”

“Hmm?”

Duncan’s fingers rested against his scalp and John was unable to withhold the sound that escaped him. Warm, reassuring pressure, a deliberate, gentle massage. He could fall asleep right there. Would have, very happily.

“Get up.”

“No.”

“I will carry you upstairs if I have to.”

John snorted. He couldn’t help it. The mental image was ridiculous. Any way he looked at it, this entire situation was ridiculous. Two retired - in theory - assassins, finding comfort in each other in the middle of winter in a cabin in the woods. His next laugh was more pronounced.

“You know I will.”

“That’s why I’m laughing.” John forced his eyes open, tilted his head into the hand that caressed him and looked up. “Two assassins walk into a bar…”

“You’d think one of them would have ducked.” The crow’s feet at Duncan’s eyes were so pronounced when he smiled, it warmed his entire face. John settled more comfortably against his leg. They had walked into a bar. They’d sat in it for hours, talking. They’d left it together before returning for breakfast.

Together.

Duncan curled his fingers in John’s hair and tugged. “Come on.”

He cursed, but he moved. Duncan didn’t make him eat. He didn’t fuss over him. Didn’t do anything but push John ahead of him up the stairs, keeping Dog behind them with a click of his tongue and a soft command. When they made it, John started the arduous task of undressing, grumbling the entire time.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t darkened your doorway?” He asked.

“Chopped firewood, watched the grass grow.”

John laughed.

“Rearranged the gun cabinet.” Duncan pulled his own sweater over his head. “Cabinets.”

“And people envy our lives as assassins.”

“They envy the perks, not the effort.”

John hummed agreement, sitting heavily on the bed to tug off his pants and socks before folding himself into the blankets with a groan. He rolled closer when Duncan joined him, pressing his face against Duncan’s shoulder.

“Should really see if my disability affects your enjoyment of the perks,” he mumbled, felt Duncan’s warm laugh vibrate against him.

“You’re ambidextrous.”

“True.”

“And creative.”

“Also true.” but beyond sighing warm against the body next to him, John did little else. He hadn’t the energy. Not today. He’d wait til he woke in the middle of the night, unsure for a moment where he was until a familiar arm pinned him back to the mattress again. He’d wait til Dog climbed into bed again, to the put-upon displeasure of his partner. But he’d send Dog downstairs this time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _They’d quickly fallen to intimacies, these men of few words and clever tongues. Touches, nuzzles, sounds when words were unnecessary, coffee steaming on the counter when it was. Sweaters still-warm from the dryer, legs tangled together in the sheets, weekday sleep-ins and -_
> 
> _Early morning blow jobs._
> 
> This one is NSFW lovelies~

John had always been a light sleeper. Occupational hazard. But some things were well worth being woken by.

Duncan Vizla’s mouth against his cock was one of them.

John drew up a knee and brought a hand to his eyes to rub the sleep from them, his body already responding before his mind could. Hazy with pleasure, limbs still sleep-warmed and heavy, he managed a soft sound and smiled as Duncan drew a hand against the inside of his thigh.

_Good morning to you, too._

“Fuck,” sighed, hummed, breathed. John slipped a hand beneath the sheets to seek for messy hair to wrap his fingers in and tug. The hum in response drew his lips back in a pleasant hiss. He pressed his other hand to his eyes and let himself relax against the pillows.

They’d quickly fallen to intimacies, these men of few words and clever tongues. Touches, nuzzles, sounds when words were unnecessary, coffee steaming on the counter when it was. Sweaters still-warm from the dryer, legs tangled together in the sheets, weekday sleep-ins and -

Early morning blow jobs.

“Fuck.” More decisive this time, and John grinned as Duncan moved to pull away and he held him down. Later, maybe. Probably. Very likely. He scratched lightly against Duncan’s scalp and a sound caught in his throat as Duncan hummed again. John drew his other knee up with a sigh and tilted his head back.

God it felt good.

Certainly more awake now, John studied the ceiling beams, the dust motes that hovered in a daze around them, caught in a strip of sunlight the curtains hadn’t managed to block. He let himself count to ten before tugging the blankets off them both to look at Duncan.

The man’s hair was bent out of shape from sleep, his one good eye flicking up to meet John’s and narrowing as he slowly pulled back and off, replacing his mouth with his hand in a languid tug. His expression was fond, teasing. Not nearly as sleepy as John, and preening at the fact. One assassin outsmarting another. John snorted, reaching to set a hand against the rough stubble of Duncan’s cheek.

“Incorrigible.”

“Horny,” Duncan countered, and John groaned, laying back as he tugged Duncan up against him. Duncan went, started to say something else, but found himself kissed instead. A warm, lazy, press of lips that moved Duncan’s hand from between John’s legs and brought it to his face instead.

John shifted beneath him, until they found that position that had them perfectly pressed together; chest to chest, belly to belly, groin to groin. Duncan pulled back with a sigh, resting his forehead against John's and turning his face into the hand that held him. He'd been the most forward the first time, too. And every time after. Less to lose, perhaps, or simply old enough to have decided to take things he wanted before they weren't there anymore.

That suited John just fine.

"What're you sighing for," John mumbled, mouth quirking. They were too close to see each other properly, it didn't matter. "Did I interrupt something? Don't say breakfast -" John groaned as Duncan grinned and moved to kiss him again before Duncan had time to suggest another awful porn-inspired pick up line. Or John did it for him.

Instead, he planted his feet, shifted his body up against the other man and drew a hand down his spine, fingers counting vertebrae and scars. They were similar in this way, patched together by marks so old that some they couldn't even remember getting. Knives, guns, ropes, chains. Hands, on occasion teeth. Other miscellany both were so adept at finding in a pinch to defend themselves with.

"Rude," Duncan said against him, nudging John's chin up to kiss beneath it.

"Shut up."

"And stroppy."

"Horny." John grinned, drawing dull nails up Duncan's side as the other sucked a kiss against his skin. He'd leave a mark, he usually did.

“I’d never have guessed.”

John snorted, letting his hands remain where they were as Duncan moved down John’s body with slow, deliberate precision. He’d learned the places on his skin that made John’s breath hitch, that caused his hands to tremble, his voice to break. He’d learned where to leave marks and which scar-tissue was still too sensitive to go near. John let his fingers tickle over Duncan’s shoulders, against the back of his neck, into his hair where he comfortably gripped and held, even as Duncan continued to move lower.

“You’re an enabler,” John mumbled, hissing a breath through his teeth as Duncan nuzzled against the curve of his hip, and deliberately bypassed his cock to plant open-mouthed kisses against John’s thigh instead. He relaxed back into the pillows, spread his legs wider and groaned as Duncan ran a rough tongue against the skin just to the side of his balls. Teasing, over and over, until John could feel himself rocking up for friction.

Duncan, in answer, kissed John's wrist as be reached down to coax him.

He liked John like this. Gentle annoyance pulled sounds from John that Duncan very much enjoyed reminding him of later. Breathless groans and pleas through gritted teeth; low little whimpers. He was beautiful when he fought to keep control and lost it. He was beautiful when the only struggle within him was how long to hold his release.

"Stay still," Duncan told him, bending to set his mouth against the side of John's cock, breathing in the smell of him before sucking the skin; he relished the helpless noise John made above him. To his credit, John stayed still.

Duncan took his time taking John into his mouth again, eye closing as he sighed out against him. A slow pressure, building, as wet heat took John deeper and deeper. Duncan enjoyed the slowness, swallowing around the shaft, until his nose brushed the rough hair at John's groin and the other shuddered, hands curled in the sheets beside them, knuckles white.

He was lovely.

Duncan told him so in the hum deep in his throat as he pulled back, far enough to suck against the swollen head before taking him down again.

John made a broken sound, clenching his fists and tightening his belly, determined not to move despite the desperate need to arch up, grasp Duncan's hair, pull him closer. He muttered something obscene and felt Duncan laugh against him. God, he was good at this. John thought back to the first time; the impossibly late hour, one of their bedrooms, his back shoved hard against a wall and Duncan’s mouth against his own, devouring.

Fuck.

“Duncan,” he could barely manage consonants. Between his legs, Duncan damn near purred before he pulled back.

“Yes?”

“Fuck.”

“Mmm,” Duncan playfully bit against John’s stomach before ducking back down.

This time, he didn’t tease, his hand down to play with John’s balls as he swallowed against him. He allowed the hand that immediately fell to his hair, the one that dragged nails against the back of his neck. He accepted the moaned curses with pleasure. To Duncan, the shuddering, trembling body beneath him was something to worship, so he did.

John bucked up, he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to help it. He loved the way Duncan seemed so greedy for him, that John was his entire world when they fucked; when they didn’t. He’d missed this. He’d missed wanting and being wanted this much. John’s knees bent further, he slid further down the bed and laughed as Duncan held him from moving more. It felt incredible; Duncan’s tongue against him, the tease of his teeth, the press of his fingers as he spread John wider and just _took._

John’s pulse tattooed his throat, goosebumps chased themselves up and down his body and he could do little more than take it. He was sure he said Duncan’s name again, a second time, a third, tone pitching from needy to desperate to breathless within the space of several seconds. He spread his legs wider, tensed his muscles, moved to cross his ankles over Duncan’s back and hold on as he felt heat at the pit of his stomach gathering, growing.

Duncan, for his part, indulged. He took John deep before releasing him, drawing down the foreskin to tease his tongue along the slit leaking precome to his lips. He pulled away to just breathe against the wet skin, grinning when John shuddered and cursed him. He could do this for ages, to John, and had. But his own cock was aching for attention, enough that Duncan brought a hand between his legs to bring some relief as he pressed his other to John’s stomach to hold him still.

He was close.

They both were.

It didn’t take much more for John to feel it, that coiling, creeping sensation of being completely overwhelmed by his own body. He felt Duncan shift against him, curled his fingers against his scalp, against the back of his neck, and let it happen. His back left the bed, a beautiful arch between where his shoulders pressed and his hips were held. For several moments after, he saw blissful white, felt nothing but Duncan’s throat working as he swallowed, which only served to bring another shiver over him.

When John let Duncan go, dropping his arms wide across their bed, his whole body trembled.

“Fuck me,” he breathed, lips tilted into a smile, feeling a laugh at the back of his throat that came out more sultry than he’d been aiming for. “Come here.”

He sat up, catching Duncan as he shifted up the bed, and wrapped his arms around him again.

“You’re a fucking monster,” he told him, catching Duncan’s lips in a kiss before he could think of how to respond, before he could do anything but catch a breath and grin against John’s mouth. When it grew harder to hold them up, John settled to the bed again, drawing Duncan with him. Without a word he slid a hand between them to grasp Duncan’s cock, stroking with a sure and practiced tug until the other mumbled a low plea against him in Danish.John leaned back enough to watch pleasure overcome Duncan next. To watch how his hair fell over his eyes, how he parted his lips over crooked teeth as he gulped down air. To watch the way Duncan reached for him, even in the midst of all this, to curl a hand against the back of John’s neck and press their foreheads together.

He came with a shudder, pressing his entire weight to John and uncaring for the mess between them. John hardly cared, himself, settling to the mattress with a groan and adjusting to have Duncan lie comfortably atop him. He wasn’t sure if they dozed, or if they were just riding the haze of post-orgasmic bliss, but John could feel every muscle in his body relax. It was so rare it happened, even in sleep he was tense, alert to any and all sounds around him. Only orgasm and very rare black-out drinking sessions brought him this level of peace.

John drew a knee up to hold them more comfortably in repose and stroked through Duncan’s hair, absently reaching for his underwear, further along the bed, to wipe his hand against. It would do for now. He’d drag Duncan into the shower later, a bath if they were feeling particularly lazy. They’d gone through entire packs of cigarettes in that tub, talking of ancient and far-too-recent history, with Dog sprawled by the door for company.

Speaking of -

“Where’s Dog?”

“Out.”

John snorted. “You let him roam on his own?”

“He’s a big boy,” Duncan replied, slipping from John to lie at his side instead, arm heavy over John’s chest.

“He’ll get cold.”

“I put his coat on him.”

“What?”

Duncan tilted his head, enough to see John above him, and grinned. John just groaned.

“You didn’t.”

“Came in last night’s mail. I figured it was the perfect opportunity for him to test it out.”

“If it were anyone else,” John sighed, stroking up and down Duncan’s back even as he wanted to shove him off the bed.

“You’d kill me?” Duncan supplied helpfully. In answer, John just turned to him, draping a leg over Duncan’s, and kissed him. There was threat enough in that alone, and Duncan hummed, warm, and smiled.

“Later.” John told him, blindly seeking for the blankets to yank them over the two of them. “Fucking later.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Both had healed up as much as their tortured bodies allowed them to; the last of the bruises fading to old yellow and swamp green against ribs and thighs and backs. With them paled, John’s tattoos stood in stark relief against his skin again, words and icons and images, as important as any scar. Duncan watched the way John’s shoulders worked, how the brand between them stood raised and clear, the shape of an Orthodox cross cutting ties with yet another bit of his history._
> 
> Just two retired assassins taking a well-deserved hot bath.
> 
> SFW chapter, lovelies.

Dog enjoyed baths.

He enjoyed the warm water and the suds. He enjoyed when John put those suds on his head and let them balance there. He enjoyed wriggling around, wet and slippery, as John tried to hold him still, laughing as he did it.

Dog liked when John laughed with him.

But what Dog loved most was the towel. 

The towel was always from the dryer, always warmer than the water had been, and always smelled nice. It was Dog’s very own towel. He let himself be vigorously rubbed before breaking free to shake himself off and grab the end of the towel for a game of tug.

Towel had a lot of uses.

It was all John could do but indulge him, drenched despite the fact that he’d gone into the endeavor shirtless and in his oldest jeans, he wrestled the towel from Dog, yanked the wiggly beast closer to hug him as Dog whined happily and sneezed - just so John knew they weren’t _actually_ fighting.

“Good dog,” John grabbed his muzzle, a gentle grasp, and kissed his nose. Dog looked thrilled. “You’ve made such a mess. Water all over the bathroom, silly boy.” He let Dog go, and watched him waddle to the door and turn left, heading down the stairs. With a shake of his head, John followed.

Below, Duncan had stoked the fire up, a pile of logs by the fireplace large enough to last them the night and well into morning. John dragged his hand through his hair and leaned over the banister, watching as Dog bumped against Duncan’s legs, wiggled his entire body when the assassin bent to stroke behind his ears, catch one between his fingers and tug it gently.

“Duncan,”

He turned, eye immediately on John, not needing to seek him. Too many years of practice at finding people and places by sound alone, his very own human sonar system.

“I’ve made a mess,” John continued. Duncan raised an eyebrow.

“You are a mess,” he told him.

“Yeah, well, I’m your mess. Come upstairs.”

He didn’t wait to see if Duncan would. He knew Duncan would. He may take his time; adding logs to the fire, checking the doors for the fifth time, adjusting their surveillance system, paying Dog the attention he deserved… but he would come up.

By the time he did, John had cleared up most of the water from the floor with Dog’s towel, the thing itself knotted in a pile by the door for him to take out to wash later. He’d filled the bath again, an enormous copper claw-footed thing, and had draped two new towels over the heater to warm for them.

He didn’t turn when Duncan came closer, a deliberate show of trust that took more willpower than John liked. There were few people on earth he trusted. He hated that around one of the people he trusted most, his instincts couldn’t quite silence themselves. Well, he’d honed them for four decades, he supposed it would take about as long to ease them up again.

He leaned back against Duncan as warm hands moved to his shoulders, down his arms, to rest at his hips.

“I see no mess,” Duncan pointed out, and John hummed. 

“We’ll make more.” He turned, catching the hem of Duncan’s sweater with a fingertip before letting it go. “This. Off.”

John had felt that tickle of a chill against his skin when he’d gone out on the landing, knew that despite the fire and the steam that filled the bathroom, it wasn’t the kind of weather one indulged in nudity for, and yet -

From his jeans, he tugged a wrinkled pack of cigarettes and a lighter, setting both to the small stool by the tub that already held a gun. Force of habit. He watched as Duncan worked his sweater over his head and folded it loosely before setting it to the sink. John smiled.

“And the rest of it.”

With a shake of his head, Duncan complied, letting his eyes travel over John in his state of undress as he worked himself to a similar situation. Only then, he noticed, did John move to undo his jeans and slip them down his legs.

Both had healed up as much as their tortured bodies allowed them to; the last of the bruises fading to old yellow and swamp green against ribs and thighs and backs. With them paled, John’s tattoos stood in stark relief against his skin again, words and icons and images, as important as any scar. Duncan watched the way John’s shoulders worked, how the brand between them stood raised and clear, the shape of an Orthodox cross cutting ties with yet another bit of his history.

When Duncan stepped closer to set his lips against it, John made a warm, pleased sound, and reached for the cigarettes. He put two between his lips, lit them both, before passing one back for Duncan to take. For a while they just stood there, pressed together, sharing heat, ashing their cigarettes to the floor because there wasn’t an ashtray to ash them into.

Making a mess.

“We’d best get in before Dog decides the water’s for him,” Duncan said, kissing across John’s shoulder before stepping past him to test the water. Just hot enough to set his teeth on edge. Comfortable once they’d both settle. It would give them time to soak before necessity forced them out again. He watched John toss his pants further away from the tub before climbing in after him, sitting, for the moment, against the opposite end of the bath.

It was large enough for them to comfortably fit, and they lazily took their time arranging their limbs around each other, sinking deeper into the water, uncaring when some sloshed over the edge. If this was how they spent their evening - in silence, simply being near each other - it would be perfect. Neither Duncan nor John ever felt the need to fill silences, especially around each other. But when Duncan stroked his hand against John’s calf, feeling the residual dent where a muscle had been permanently damaged, he couldn’t help but ask:

“When was the last time you went to an actual hospital?”

John considered. He wasn’t sure. He hadn’t had need of one for the time he’d been with Helen, and he couldn’t exactly afford the wait time needed for the ER when he was running from the fourteen-million dollar bounty. He exhaled his smoke towards the ceiling and rubbed the side of his nose with his thumb.

“I can’t remember,” he admitted. “I never liked them. I think I did everything I could to avoid them as a kid, too.”

“It’s the smell,” Duncan agreed. Clinical, artificial, chemical. “I don’t think I’ve been for about twenty years.”

“Why’d you go?”

“Carpal tunnel.”

“You’re shitting me.” John couldn’t help but laugh. It was ridiculous to consider that with the way their lives were, they could get such normal things as _actually sick_. He shook his head and narrowed his eyes at Duncan, trying to find the lie, but there wasn’t one. The earnest smile, damn near embarrassed, was answer enough; it was absolutely true.

“How’d you explain the rest?” He gestured to Duncan, encompassing the scars, misshapen muscles, broken bones wrongly reset. The other shrugged, hand still cupping John’s calf beneath the water.

“Pretended I was exceptionally clumsy.”

“Did you use an accent?”

“Russian.”

“Fuck.” John grinned. He could imagine it, Duncan stumbling in, working much too hard to subvert his body’s natural sense of balance to make his story plausible. “Who did you pretend to be?”

“A carpenter.”

“Jesus.”

“He gave me the idea actually.”

John snorted, rubbing his eyes before bringing his fingers together to extinguish the cigarette between them. He didn’t reach for another yet, he let himself float in the hot water, watching Duncan through the steam. He’d taken the eye patch off, as he normally did towards the later part of the evening when it neared time for bed, and had his other eye half closed, near-dozing in the heat.

Duncan was like a large cat. Contented when he was warm, near soft things, and around John’s lap.

The thought had John smiling again before he reached to light another cigarette.

From the door came a gentle whine, and John looked over to see Dog in the hallway, watching the two of them.

“Hey,” John said, voice warm. “Got bored alone by the fire, huh?”

Dog licked his lips, set his tail wagging. Duncan tilted his head against the tub and held a hand out for Dog to rub his head against when he called him over. Duncan hadn’t had a dog since -

Well.

He didn’t think about him often.

But he’d always liked dogs, always liked animals. He’d just never had the chance to own any. Not til John had stumbled into his life, at his behest, and brought this wiggly hippo of a beast with him. Duncan knew that John noticed the comfort he found in the animal. He found he didn’t mind that vulnerability coming through with John around. He’d be the last person to judge him for it. He’d mowed down damn near three hundred people over the fact that some asshole had murdered a puppy.

Dog enjoyed the petting for a while, before moving off just far enough to find himself a place on the bathmat to lie down on. With a deep, almost anguished sigh, he settled with his legs stretched out and his beady eyes watching them. His tail tapped against the floor whenever one of them looked over, but he didn’t otherwise move. Comfortable, now, with his people.

By the time he’d finished his second cigarette, John felt that inexplicable urge to move. It wasn’t the heat, it wasn’t the nearness - this house, despite its size, didn’t feel claustrophobic for him - it was an itch he’d noticed more and more since the first time they’d met at the Continental. He drew his feet to him, shifting around in the tub until he could lay back against Duncan’s chest, his head on his shoulder.

This time Duncan reached to light a cigarette for them to share. John found Duncan’s free hand beneath the water and wrapped it around his middle, relaxing further against him. He accepted the filter between his lips when Duncan placed it there, and took a deep drag.

“Did you know the yakuza have their ninjas on motorbikes now?” John asked absently, feeling Duncan’s laugh more than hearing it. “At least they do in New York.”

“Upgrades on the business insurance plan.”

“Higher premiums.” John grinned. He accepted the cigarette again, gently kissing against Duncan’s fingers when he took it away. “Dumbest shit I’ve ever done, trying to outrun them on a horse.”

“They probably don’t even know how to ride a horse,” Duncan replied. “From what I can tell. Very different methods of training than when I was graduating.”

“Everyone gets a damn trophy, now, just for participating.”

Duncan hummed, flicked the cherry on the cigarette til it went out and dropped the butt with the others. He watched Dog for a while, half asleep, but ears attuned to their quiet conversation, then turned his head to nuzzle against John’s hair. He accepted the wet hand that slipped into his own and turned into it, settling them both deeper into the bath, more water dripping to the floor over the edges.

“Where’d you learn to ride?” He asked. John smiled.

“Belarus.”

“Norway.”

“You probably learned to tolt then,”

Duncan shook his head, nose rubbing against John’s hair as he did. “That’s Iceland.”

“Damn.”

John hadn’t been to Iceland. Too few clients out that way to warrant the travel expenses. He’d wanted to go, for a while, for a holiday. Back when holidays were viable, not just a figment of some messy pipe dream. He could go, he supposed, now. With Duncan. With Dog.

Still a pipe dream, just a bit more viable than a month ago.

“You know, I’m going to fall asleep if we stay in here any longer,” John told him. He felt Duncan sigh against him, shift to somehow make it even more comfortable to lie on him, even harder to get out of the tub. With feigned reluctance, John settled against him again.

“I suppose if you do, I’ll just have to carry you to bed.”

“You have a bad back.”

“I’ll manage.”

“You have _carpal tunnel_.”

“Actually, I had that professionally fixed.”

John snorted, turning into Duncan enough to kiss him to shut him up. A soft, chaste thing that was worked to relax both of them. He drew his nose against the side of Duncan’s, and with a sigh moved to get out of the bath.

Dog pushed himself up, tail beating against the ground as he watched John reach for a towel to wrap around himself, for a towel to hand to Duncan as he stepped out after him. John bent to pull the plug and used Dog’s towel to wipe up the ashes and water from the floor, or at least to leave it soaking them up as Duncan deliberately pulled him towards the door.

“Dog,” he said, the animal just as used to taking commands from Duncan, now, as he was from John. “Bed.”

John smiled, bringing the side of his thumb up against his teeth to absently work the skin as he watched Dog trot ahead of them to the bedroom. The house was warm, smelled faintly of woodsmoke, and immediately lulled John into comfort, if a little. This was home, for however long that was. And after, home would still be the two beings sharing his space now, just in a different location.

He could work with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ideas for upcoming chapters? [Hit me up!](https://suntosirius.tumblr.com/ask)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was impossible in his line of work to be ignorant of the development of new technologies, and John had found, to his personal amusement, that he very much enjoyed Spotify._
> 
> Fluff and laughs in this one, folx. SFW.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amazing [DaringD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaringD) requested: One of the guys goes into town and when they get back find the other wearing headphones, singing and dancing, or belting out show tunes, while doing housework or something.
> 
> How could I say no to that??

_“Am. I. Sexual??”_

Duncan froze, hand halfway towards seeking the firearm he kept in the holster over his shoulder, unable to do anything but stare, lips parted in shock at the scene before him.

\--

_Two Hours Earlier_

“Take Dog,” John told him, downing his coffee and pushing off the counter. “He needs to get out as much as you do.”

Dog, upon hearing his name, whined and wiggled, head swinging between the two of them, expectant. John bent and caught his muzzle, rubbing his thumb between his eyes soothingly.

“I suppose I wouldn’t mind the company.” Duncan replied, watching the two of them until John sat up again. He set two fingers under his chin and kissed him. “And what will you do?”

“Get drunk and throw a party.”

Duncan snorted, kissed John again and stepped away. He called Dog to him with a tap against his thigh and took down his collar and lead from the hook by the door. John watched fondly as Duncan slipped on his holster, a sweater on top, his jacket on top of that. He watched Duncan groan as he bent to grab his boots and push his feet into them. He watched Dog as he sat in front of Duncan, eyes only on him, and patiently waited for him to stand again.

Duncan had taken to walking Dog every morning, before John got up. On the rare occasions when John had woken early anyway, he’d watched them from the window, trudging through the snow towards the trees, three sweeping leaps of Dog’s for every step of Duncan’s. They walked without a lead when they were home, Dog always returning when he was called, at this point in about three different languages. It warmed him in a way John couldn’t properly explain that they were growing so close, that Dog was growing so comfortable with another person, that he was letting himself be loved.

Duncan raised a hand in farewell, watched John return the gesture, and opened the door to take Dog to the car, leash over his shoulder until they’d need it.

John waited until the car was far down the drive before moving again. The house wasn’t a tip, but it certainly needed a clean. Neither of them were particularly used to being homebodies, but John had had more practice than Duncan. A vacuum - while Dog was out, so he wouldn’t try to wedge himself under the bed again - dusting, some laundry, the dishes, a change of sheets… then he’d drop himself onto the couch until they came home again, act oblivious when Duncan asked about it.

It was a flawless plan, because there was nothing that could go wrong with it. No one would get shot, or cut up, no cars would crash, no one - John sincerely hoped - would die.

He started with the most hated jobs. He changed the sheets and cleaned up the kitchen. He shoved half their clothes into the machine and started the cycle. The house felt too quiet, the snow outside stifling anything but the sounds within the house; John’s own breath, the fire in the grate, the machine humming with their laundry.

John rarely used his phone anymore. He had it charged in case the Bowery King contacted him, in case an old colleague reached out with information. But now he sought only to play music from it.

It was impossible in his line of work to be ignorant of the development of new technologies, and John had found, to his personal amusement, that he very much enjoyed Spotify. Music he hadn’t heard for years could now be found with a click, songs he liked listening to could be collated into a playlist so he didn’t have to look them up again… enough houses had been lost to bombings or unexpected break-ins that he’d long ago stopped trying to keep a physical music collection. 

This little app suited him just fine.

He dug out a pair of headphones, hoped they worked, and set about the rest of the house. A cloth made from a shirt Dog had chewed up made a perfect dusting cloth, one third vinegar, two thirds water went into the mister for the windows, a few more logs went into the fire…

It surprised John how easily he fell back into domestic chores. They had a similar rhythm to preparing for a job. Everything had to be in order, done a certain way, and finished before more tasks could be added. Of course, no one usually died performing chores, which was also a very welcome bonus.

One playlist, another, and John finally settled on one chosen by the app itself, a Friday Night 90s Mix - even though it wasn’t Friday - that had enough music on it to cover the rest of what he had left to do. To the opening riff of Nirvana’s _Smells Like Teen Spirit_ , John dug out the vacuum cleaner and went about finding a plug.

 _No Diggity_ provided the soundtrack for his journey through their bedroom. _You Oughta Know_ took him down the corridor and stairs. _U Can’t Touch This_ found John in the kitchen unable to stop his feet moving to the familiar choreography he’d memorized in 1990, along with everyone else. There was a freedom in it, letting go when no one was there to see him. Allowing himself to use the space, to use his body, to release the energy that had inevitably pent up in him over the weeks here.

He danced through three songs before he finally finished the kitchen, moonwalking into the living room to Michael Jackson’s _Thriller_ , voice pitching as he started to softly sing along.

John had never been much of a singer. Helen had laughed at him many times when he’d attempted to serenade her at her request, after watching a film or having one too many drinks on a Saturday evening. He’d never been much of a singer but it had never stopped him from enjoying the process of it. In the car, alone, running errands. In the shower. He’d not done it for years, now, and he could feel the giddiness growing in his chest as it once did, when he let his voice go from tentative to loud, confident in his inability to sing and just as confident in not caring.

He belted out Madonna’s _Like A Virgin_ , lifting one side of the couch to work the vacuum under it. He crooned _Don’t Speak_ into the brush as he picked Dog’s hair out of the bristles and sent it into the pipe with the rest of the dust. He found himself bouncing on the balls of his feet, drumming in midair with the vacuum under his arm, singing all the parts of _Everybody_ one after the other, voice adjusting as needed from lead to backing vocals, to make sure he got every word in.

“Am I original?” John yelled, unashamed of how entirely he didn’t match the singing in his ears, toning down the volume to answer the lyrics with a raspy _yeah_.

“Am I the only one?” John tapped the power on the vacuum and continued to sing, eyes shut, completely lost to the tune.

“Am. I. Sexual??” He demanded of his invisible audience, riffing a guitar not even in the music to give his hands something to do.

“AM I EVERYTHING YOU NEED? YOU BETTER ROCK YOUR BODY NOW!”

“Oh my god.”

It was testament to John’s instincts that he heard the voice at all, and he tore the headphones from his ears and turned immediately to the door. Dog watched him with his eyes wide and ears back, confused, but enchanted enough that his tail was wagging. Duncan stood next to him, a hand on his gun, and his expression just as concerned. At their feet, paper bags of groceries, a plastic bag from the pet store.

The tinny refrain of the Backstreet Boys classic continued through John’s headphones, hanging limp from his hand, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what the hell he was supposed to do now.

So he swallowed, straightened his shoulders and asked: “Well, am I?”

Duncan watched him, noted the vacuum, the freshly stoked fire, the dishevelled appearance of his partner, and managed only: “I’m not sure I know how one rocks their body.”

That was it. John lost it. Whatever composure he had managed to cling to, whatever pride he had hoped to salvage, was gone, replaced by laughter; near-hysterical giggling. Because, honestly, what more could he do but laugh? When he, one of the most feared names in his field in his prime was just walked in on singing to a boy band from the 90s, by none other than the other most feared name in killing.

This entire scene was a joke. His entire damn life was a punchline.

He swore and pressed a hand to his face and continued to laugh until he felt Duncan wrap his arms around him. He supposed there were worse things Duncan could have walked in on him doing, but none came to mind at that moment.

“Fuck,”

“That can be arranged,” Duncan replied, “only once you teach me how to -”

“Shut up.”

“But you told me I better -”

“Duncan, stop.” John tried catching his breath, managed a few slow, controlled inhales, before he was off again. Because it had occurred to him just how lucky he had been that Duncan had come home when he was up to the Backstreet Boys, and not back when John was proclaiming to the entire house and its surrounds that _like a virgin_ he was _touched for the very first time_.

John felt Dog jump up to press his feet against John’s thighs, demanding attention, and dropped a hand to scratch his big head. Duncan continued to hug him, swaying back and forth to whatever the new song was that was humming through the headphones in John’s hand. After a while, John leaned back against him, licking his lips.

“I thought you’d be gone longer.”

“We were gone two hours,” Duncan pointed out, pressing a kiss to John’s cheek even as he tried to pull away. “Got food. Fuel. Got Dog a new jacket.”

“He has three now.”

“This one has pockets. When he comes with me next time he can help carry things home.”

John snorted and finally allowed himself to be kissed. After a breath, he kissed back. 

“I can’t believe you bought Dog another jacket.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you could sing.”

John shoved him. “One more word on it and you’ll be sleeping on the couch.”

“I will,” Duncan agreed. “It’ll be like having front row seats to the worst show of my life.”

John just fell against him with a laugh, a groan, fight gone, adrenaline still beating through him. 

But there were worse things Duncan could have walked in on, he considered, as the headphones in his hand screeched _I Will Always Love You._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For all you young'ins who might not have grown up with this madness, and for those who remember it and wish to relive it... here are the featured tracks as performed by John Wick (not really).
> 
> [Smells Like Teen Spirit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg)  
> [No Diggity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KL9mRus19o)  
> [You Oughta Know](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPcyTyilmYY)  
> [U Can't Touch This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otCpCn0l4Wo)  
> [Thriller](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIx_HbmRnQY)  
> [Like A Virgin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s__rX_WL100)  
> [Don't Speak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR3Vdo5etCQ)  
> [Everybody (Rock Your Body)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M6samPEMpM)  
> and the one that got away...  
> [I Will Always Love You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JWTaaS7LdU)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _By the time John got to the drink the ice had melted, condensation pimpling the surface of the waxed paper, reflecting the dull bar lights like eyes, shaming John for his choices. He calmly told them where to shove it, words muttered under his breath as he took the drink up to swallow anyway._
> 
> _He stopped before his lips touched the glass, eyes on the coaster beneath where, in elegant hand, were written four numbers._
> 
> _5284_
> 
> A few of you have asked about their meeting/first time... I've had it in mind since I started this thing, so here you go! NSFW
> 
> Based about 2 years before John met Helen. So well before current events.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can anyone guess the random other fandom insert here? If you can I will be blissfully happy, it's my favourite fandom ever.
> 
> This chapter is brought to you by my smut-writing poker face, as I wrote this start to end in the middle of the library and then a crowded cafe.

It was on the cusp between too early and too late when John registered with the concierge at the New York Continental and got his key, passing his bags over to be delivered to his room for him.

He wasn’t in the mood for anything but strong scotch and the haziness of drunken half-sleep that would come after most of the bottle was in his stomach. John wanted to see no one, speak with no one, and be no one until he inevitably woke up again. That proved easy enough, since the hotel bar wasn’t teeming with people this time of night.

John recognized the barman, who poured him a drink with a respectful _evening, Mr. Wick_ , and a couple of others clinging to the darker corners of the place. The Continental catered to more than just those who worked for the High Table; names drifted along whispers and rumour, eyes caught once in a while, connections were sometimes made. The Continental chain was one of the only places where enemies could meet and pass each other without bloodshed, and where plans could be made without suspicion surrounding those doing the planning.

Honor amongst thieves, John thought bitterly.

He decided to remain at the bar. No point taking a seat when he would soon be getting up again to get another drink, and another. He could order the bottle, take it upstairs, but where would be the bleak self-destruction in that, if it weren’t somewhat in public? He did savor the burn of the scotch, though, not yet angry enough to waste quality stuff by shooting it like cheap vodka. For the second, John got it on the rocks.

“Ouzo,” the voice was accented, rough, and sounded as tired as John felt. He looked over.

John only knew of him by reputation, they’d never had reason to meet officially or otherwise. But Duncan Vizla’s Black Kaiser had a similar reputation to John’s Baba Yaga; ruthless, deadly, silent, and not to be fucked with. Yet far too many people tried to, anyway.

Tried, of course, being the operative.

The man got his ouzo, and John tried to hide his displeasure as he settled next to him. He didn’t want company. He didn’t need it. But he just couldn’t bring himself to move his exhausted body off the stool and to another one. When John finished his drink, he ordered another, and after a moment of hesitation gestured to the barman to bring another ouzo for the man next to him.

Both drinks arrived.

Both men took their glasses with bruised fingers and drank.

“Tough gig?” Duncan didn’t look at him. John didn’t look back.

“You could say that.”

“Hmm.”

It at once angered John and calmed him that they could so easily speak of killing, as though it were the weather, as though they were discussing a film neither of them had enjoyed. It shouldn’t be so simple. It shouldn’t be so , _indifferent_. Yet here it was, just that. He supposed it wouldn’t do to allow their complex and caring parts through, with work like theirs. It would end them; absolute emotional annihilation.

He tossed his drink back and hissed at the sting of it, bringing a hand to his eyes to rub stars into them so he didn’t have to think about anything. That he was drinking too slowly, that the alcohol was doing nothing for his nerves. He wanted to get into a fight. He wanted to get knocked out and sleep for as long as his stupid brain let him.

Another drink arrived in front of him without him having ordered it, and John nodded woodenly to the man next to him in thanks. Duncan just curled his fingers around his own glass and drank.

In his periphery, John watched the way Duncan licked the taste of the liquor from his lips, closed his eyes to savor it. He watched gnarled hands come together, fingers steepling, before setting to the bar. Old hands. Rough hands. Familiar in how often John had broken his own knuckles, dislocated delicate bones, lost fingerprints to torture and stupidity in equal measure.

The silence was doing John’s head in, but he would rather shoot himself in the foot than attempt awkward small talk.

The Black Kaiser finished his drink, set the glass upside down on the bar decisively, and pushed to stand. John relaxed his shoulders, resigned to spend the rest of the night uninterrupted in his slow descent into drunkenness. He didn’t hear what Duncan said to the barman, he didn’t care. But he did turn to watch him leave, a slight limp to his gait suggesting a fresh injury, shoulders curled under the weight of whatever job he’d just finished.

“Another, sir.”

John turned to the young man, nodded, even though the drink in his hand was barely touched, and accepted the glass that was slid to him across the bartop on a paper coaster. Was it his fifth? Sixth? It didn’t matter. The more he could get into his blood the harder it would hit him. John was determined to sit there until he had to be carried out if he had to.

By the time John got to the drink the ice had melted, condensation pimpling the surface of the waxed paper, reflecting the dull bar lights like eyes, shaming John for his choices. He calmly told them where to shove it, words muttered under his breath as he took the drink up to swallow anyway.

He stopped before his lips touched the glass, eyes on the coaster beneath where, in elegant hand, were written four numbers.

_5284_

John considered them, let his eyes focus on the numbers, unfocus again. Then he set his drink to the coaster again and pushed it away as he stood.

He took the stairs to the fifth floor, adrenaline overriding exhaustion, head pounding with the beginnings of the haze he’d been seeking. He went because no one could kill in the Continental. He went because he had nothing better to do. He went because he was angry, and tired, and curious.

He shoved his hands into his pockets after rapping his knuckles against the numbered door and dropped his head back with a sigh. What was the worst that could happen? They could get into a fight, he supposed. But he doubted it. He could turn on his heel now and flee, like a coward, and leave it at that. He could hold his ground, freeze in place, demand answers, or…

Or he could take the two steps needed to get to the door, when Duncan opened it, and allow himself to be yanked through, kissing back as Duncan’s lips met his in a rough crush.

As soon as the door closed, John’s back was against it, air pushed out of his lungs and into Duncan’s mouth. John’s hands sought for the man in front of him, grabbing whatever he could reach as he screwed his eyes closed and made a sound against him.

Fucking, he supposed, was also an option.

Duncan pushed only as much as John pushed back. Enough to coil that anger in him again, enough to heat his blood beyond what the scotch had done, enough to part John’s lips and mingle between them the taste of anise and smoke.

He’d felt the tension coming off John in waves, down at the bar. Felt that familiar need to rend and run and ruin something. He’d left the number just in case, uncaring if the summons had gone unanswered, caring only that if they were, he could hold against the assassin and fed him back that passion, that desire to get absolutely wrecked. They could pick up the pieces later, if they wanted to, or leave them scattered over the floor for room service to sweep away. It didn’t matter.

Nothing really mattered, except the fact that John’s hands were seeking blindly to undo the buttons on Duncan’s shirt, slipping against his skin when the first gap was created to draw his nails over his chest, already leaving marks.

So Duncan left some of his own. Breaking the kiss to duck his head and suck just beneath John’s jaw, hard enough to draw another sound from him, hard enough to feel John’s hands move to his back to press half-moons of dull nail marks there too. He’d feel that in the shower the next morning, when hot water touched his sensitive skin, he’d feel it when he moved. Duncan didn’t say anything, he didn’t need to. He just brought his hands to John’s shirt next, tugging loose his tie and shoving it aside so that when he kissed lower, against his throat, against the hammering pulse and bulging Adam’s apple, it wouldn’t be in the way.

And John let him, sighing out, helpless, eyes still closed to it even though his body was arching and aching in every way to be closer to the man working systematically to undo him. This is what he’d wanted, he realized. Not to taste blood between his lips, not to press a bag of frozen peas against a throbbing bruise and throbbing headache, both, the next morning. 

This.

He caught his hands in Duncan’s hair as he kissed lower, easing himself on one knee against the floor as he made quick work of John’s belt, of the button and fly of his pants, and brought his mouth to John’s cock tenting his underwear. Even through fabric, the heat of his tongue was incredible, and John moaned for it, a low, needy noise.

Yes. This. Definitely this.

Duncan mouthed against him, sucking the fabric, wetting it enough to outline John’s cock in the most obscene way. He teased only long enough to feel John’s fingers dig into his scalp before he drew his briefs down, elastic catching behind his balls, and took John into his mouth.

John’s knees damn near gave out. He would have been on the floor had his arms not immediately shot out to press against the walls of the narrow entryway they stood in to hold himself up. He swore, voice drawn rough and low, and finally opened his eyes to look.

It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to be vulnerable enough to have someone between his legs, whether like this, a quick suck against a wall, or in bed. John found that while he could keep his guard up when he was fucking, he hardly wanted to. It took all of the enjoyment out of the thing. But here… here he was safe by law, by decree. And the man currently drawing on every ounce of control John possessed was absolutely perfect.

The next sound John made was damn near helpless, voice breaking as Duncan looked up at him before slowly pulling back and off. They didn’t speak here either, no need, as down in the bar, and Duncan leaned in to bite gently against John’s stomach before he stood again and let himself be kissed.

Pleasure was a drug so potent it could fell armies. It had, historically, started wars and ceased them. It had, in his lifetime, saved lives and ended them. Now, Duncan found himself groaning just as softly, just as needily against John’s mouth as the other worked his pants open with trembling hands and stroked his cock. Hands as rough as his own, but unfamiliar, practiced enough to feel _good_ , but nothing like how Duncan touched himself. Duncan pressed his forehead to John’s, set a hand against the door behind him and just let himself enjoy it, panting hot breaths to mingle with John’s until John shifted to take them both to stroke in his hand and Duncan couldn’t resist kissing him again.

It could be just this, just friction and energy and desperation. It could, but it wouldn’t be near enough. Not for Duncan, whose skin sang for more contact, not for John, who had his bottom lip shoved between his teeth so hard it paled.

No.

“John,” Duncan murmured, just softly, just once, and when he looked up John nodded, a stuttered quick thing. He slipped a hand against Duncan’s cheek as he kissed him again, harsh, brutal, but with that a permission granted. When they broke apart, John turned, setting his feet wider, his hands against the door where his fingers immediately curled.

Duncan pressed his forehead between John’s shoulders, head ducked to watch his own hand stroking himself. He closed his eyes and remembered the sensation of John touching them both moments before, the electricity that had shot through him at the closeness, the intimacy of it all. Not wont to move away, he spat in his hand and slipped it down between John’s legs to finger him open.

This wasn’t gentle either, as none of this had been. There was no cruelty in it, no desire to cause pain, but there was a welcome harshness to it that had John’s lips curling over his teeth to bare them as he arched back into it. He could feel Duncan’s breath hot against his back, filtering through the fabric of his jacket, his shirt. He could feel the way Duncan sought, shared John’s deep groan when he found his prostate and added a second finger to stretch him more, tormenting that little nub further.

This, John supposed, could be enough too.

But then Duncan was murmuring something against him, freeing his fingers, spitting into his hand once more, and John’s fingers scrabbled for purchase against the door as he turned his face against it and smeared his lips out of shape. The sound he made he was sure went through the wood, to the corridor beyond, and he _didn’t care_.

The stretch hurt, and he pushed back into it. The pressure built at the base of his spine, at the back of his throat, at his temples, and John stretched his neck out against the door, chin digging into it, and allowed whatever sounds escaped his lips to go unsilenced. They were Duncan’s, and well-earned.

No, he thought. Just this. Just this is what’s enough. Nothing less.

Duncan rocked against him, shallow motions to get him deeper and deeper until he was flush against John’s back, wrapping an arm around his middle to hold him close and dropping his forehead against John’s shoulder as he caught his breath. His other hand he pressed to the door next to John’s, catching two fingers with his own and holding on as he pulled out and thrust back in again.

John couldn’t remember the last time he was so thoroughly, deeply fucked. When Duncan moved, it was with his entire body; his teeth pressing against John’s shoulder, his hair catching against the back of John’s neck, knees shoving against the backs of John’s threatening to unbalance them both. His fingers tightened around John’s own until their hands just slotted together and _held on_.

John panted curses and pleas against the door, watching his breath fog then dissipate, fog then dissipate against the surface. He ducked his head between his shoulders, arched his back, tensed his muscles to hear Duncan curse behind him. With a grin, he did it again. He brought his free hand down to stroke himself, cursing when Duncan took it away to replace with his own instead and slapped it back against the door.

And then, bliss. 

A thrust, another, and John’s entire vision went white, fingers numb, head throbbing as he lost himself to his orgasm, voice cracking against the door on a word that could very well have been Duncan’s name; he was too far gone to care. As he slowly came back to himself, John could feel Duncan panting against him, his own body tense with release, his voice just as ravaged as he muttered something into John’s back.

They stood together, barely keeping each other up, John melting against the door, Duncan against him, both of them exhausted, satisfied, sweaty. John’s legs were trembling, he wouldn’t be able to hold himself up for much longer unless they moved. At this point he hardly cared if he ended up in a sprawl on the floor; he’d just spent the last very pleasant while moaning the man’s name to the entire fifth floor of the Continental.

“Fuck,” he managed, breathy, soft, and smiled as Duncan laughed against him. When Duncan moved to slip free, John winced, and crossed his arms over the door to rest his forehead against them. It was surprisingly welcome when instead of just turning John out, Duncan wrapped him in an embrace again.

“Do you want to stay?”

For a moment, John didn’t move. Then he nodded. He wasn’t sure he could even make it to his room right then, if he tried. He didn’t think he could walk very far in this state. And the scotch he’d managed to drink was now seeping through the adrenaline to cloud his brain and impair all forms of judgement.

He’d blame his decision on that, he thought, if the morning proved intolerable.

“You might want to get this pressed,” Duncan added, plucking John’s suit. John snorted.

“Fuck off.” He moved to turn, groaning at the stretch between his legs as he did, and rested back against the door. In front of him, Duncan looked just as devastated as John felt. His hair was a sweaty mess, his skin flushed beneath his eyes and over his nose, crooked from countless breaks. John didn’t think before leaning in to kiss him again, just a catch of lips against lips that he was pleased to feel returned. Perhaps the next day wouldn’t be an absolute disaster.

“Send it down with yours in the morning,” John told him, toying with the wrinkled tail of Duncan’s shirt before letting it hang loose again and pulling him close once more, parting his lips into the kiss this time and sighing, warm, against Duncan’s cheek. He was so tired he could barely think.

So he didn’t think.

“Bed?” He asked.

“Yep.”

“Right.”

John laughed as Duncan bent to work free his shoes, his pants down over his feet before John could attempt to do it himself. He wondered if it was because Duncan knew he would fall over if he tried or because he just wanted to. Both thoughts felt nice enough to believe. He shrugged his jacket and shirt off, tugged his tie over his head and dropped them in a heap on the floor. When Duncan finished helping him he did the same. Then he turned and without a word led the way to the bedroom.

Same layout as any other room John had stayed in; entryway, small kitchenette, parlour with two chairs and a table, bedroom where the bed took up the entire space, ensuite on the side. He stretched his arms over his head, relishing the way his bones aligned themselves, the way his muscles tugged, the way he favored one side as he walked, now, after a proper fuck.

He didn’t hesitate when he saw the bed, crawling into it and burying himself under the sheets with a groan. He didn’t hesitate, either, when Duncan joined him and John immediately sought him out, arm heavy over his middle and face pressed against his shoulder to just have him near. 

He was barely conscious as Duncan’s fingers found his hair and started to stroked it back to a semblance of order, and John was certain he fell asleep before Duncan was finished; warm, relaxed, and dreamless.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _With a sigh, John grabbed up the rest of the things, checking them over to see if any pieces were worth rescuing. Two shirts made it, a pair of boxers was unharmed, and a sock was safe. Just one sock._
> 
> _“I think he ate it,” John said, holding the sock up without its partner, Duncan grunting in response._
> 
> _“That will be an interesting discovery later."_
> 
> Dog doesn't like storms...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another adorable request by the lovely [DaringD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaringD) who asked for:
> 
> _John and Duncan go hunting or somewhere they can't take Dog and when they get back they find a HUGE MESS. Dog tore open whole bag of kibble right next to full food bowl, ate some socks, chewed up John's favorite sweater (actually Duncan's only non-black sweater that looked SO good on him), scattered trash all over, and then after they are home, Dog spends the night barfing it all up. Basically the trials of being pet owners! :-)_
> 
> Have some ideas for chapters? [Hit me up](https://suntosirius.tumblr.com/ask)!

The storm came out of nowhere, rolling thick and heavy over the mountains, and caught John and Duncan on their way into town. First just the rain, hammering against the roof and windows, smearing their view of the road to an impressionist artwork. It hit hard enough that they pulled over, waiting out the worst of it, just enough for their windscreen wipers to keep up with the torrent. Then came the first flash of lightning, and thunder just seconds after.

“That common?” John asked. Duncan just shrugged next to him.

“It happens.”

By the time they got to town and found a place to park, the rain had become hail. John drummed his fingers against his lip in time with the storm before glancing over at Duncan.

“I was going to chop wood today,” he said absently, and John snorted.

“Not anymore.”

It was perhaps ten minutes before it eased up enough for them to get out and finally go about their errands. 

Simple things. Food shopping. A few tools that needed fixing, some that needed replacing. A stop into the charity shop for John to flick through the jacket rack, endlessly amusing Duncan in the process. He’d stopped with the suits altogether at this point, and had taken on what he’d joking referred to as the “lumberjack hobo” style of dress.

The pet store, of course, for Dog’s food, his treats, a new Kong since he’d massacred his last one. Duncan considered the array of animal clothing before John dragged him from the aisle by his collar, determined not to see Dog in another jacket or sweater. By this point, Dog’s wardrobe was growing faster than John’s was.

The weather hadn’t cleared by the time they were done, but it was certainly not the apocalyptic mess they’d driven through to get here. On the way back the rain picked up again, a few more flashes of lightning, thunder farther away now but still rattling their bones when it hit. Regardless, Duncan still drove with just his right hand at the bottom of the steering wheel, his left elbow up against the window.

When they got home it was a coordinated rush to bring all their things in with them at once, piling bag atop of bag, shoving longer items into pockets, pushing up hoods that the wind would inevitably yank off them before they could protect them at all. Duncan fumbled with the keys, dropped them as soon as the door was unlocked and bent to grab them as John pushed the door open with his hip.

“Oh fuck me.”

From the front door and all through towards the living room looked as though a bomb had hit it. Debris was strewn from the kitchen trash, a chair was toppled over, clothes were torn and in pieces and scattered across the floor and up onto the couch. 

“Break-in?” Duncan asked, standing just behind John as the other shook his head.

“Dog.”

John called his name, whistled. He moved through the destruction seeking for their boy, careful to avoid stepping on anything and spreading the mess further; there was a small puddle by the fireplace. He didn’t find Dog in the living room or the kitchen, and he and Duncan split the floors to seek for him, shutting the front door to avoid losing him to the storm outside.

That’s what would have done it, John thought as he took the stairs two at a time to look in the bathroom next. The storm must have scared Dog enough to bring about this panic and destruction.

“John!”

He leaned over the bannister, trying to find Duncan on the lower floor before he came into view, arms wrapped around a very scared, very apologetic Dog.

“He’d jammed himself between the wall and the dryer,” Duncan was saying as John damn near flew down the stairs to them both. “I don’t think this one is a fan of storms,” he added, amused, as John drew a hand over Dog’s fat head and soothed him. Against Duncan’s leg, Dog’s tail whacked joyfully.

“Poor Dog,” John whispered, stroking behind his ears, between his eyes, all the places he knew Dog liked to be touched. He accepted the wide panting grin, continued to comfort him until his ears no longer pressed flat against his head in worry and shame. Duncan held him close, scratching against Dog’s ribs and belly with practiced fingers. For a few moments, Dog was in absolute heaven as both men fussed over him.

Duncan moved to take Dog to the living room and put him on the couch, John following, and finally allowing himself to assess the damage done to the house.

There were superficial claw marks over the wooden floor, they wouldn’t be hard to clear up with some walnuts and wax. The chair, while toppled, hadn’t been chewed. John set it upright and considered the mess in the kitchen. Just the trash bin, nothing too tedious to clean. He just got another bag and did it, while Duncan continued to pat Dog on the couch, soothing him and telling him how brave he had been. Beyond the windows, the wind picked up again.

It was the clothing that had taken the hardest blow. John had left a basket of clean laundry to be folded by the counter before they’d gone out, and one of John’s favourite sweaters had been hanging over the arm of the couch.

Well.

The sweater had been Duncan’s, John was just incredibly fond of it. It was a green-and-grey argyle thing with well-worn sleeves. When he wore it, the shoulders were too broad, and John could sink into it like an embrace when he watched television. When Duncan wore it, it hugged his body properly, and unless he was on his way out, the sweater didn’t stay on Duncan for long after John saw him in it.

Now, shreds of it were all over the floor, impossible to recover into anything but a pile.

With a sigh, John grabbed up the rest of the things, checking them over to see if any pieces were worth rescuing. Two shirts made it, a pair of boxers was unharmed, and a sock was safe. Just one sock.

“I think he ate it,” John said, holding the sock up without its partner, Duncan grunting in response.

“That will be an interesting discovery later.”

“From whichever end he chooses to dispose of it,” John agreed with a laugh. He rubbed a hand against his eyes and stood, taking one of the ruined shirts to clean up the puddle by the fireplace. When he was done, he moved to the couch and sank to his knees in front of it, taking Dog’s face in his hands and squishing his jowls softly.

“Poor Dog,” he repeated. He refused to consider this an act of a bad animal. Any animal in a panic will do anything to ensure its survival, regardless of how illogical the actions seem to others. He leaned to hug Dog and smiled when a hot wet tongue started to rearrange his hair in his enthusiasm. He snorted when Duncan’s hand came up to try to match the other side with his fingers.

“Soon he’ll be getting you a carrier,” John said, sitting back and addressing Dog. “So he can strap you to his chest and take you with him everywhere. Don’t tempt him, Dog, he will.”

Dog seemed delighted by the idea.

Duncan’s expression spoke of similar pleasure when John turned to him. He sat up on his knees and tugged Duncan nearer to kiss him before pressing their foreheads together.

“I suppose we should unpack?”

“I suppose.”

“You do lunch, I’ll do coffee?”

Duncan hummed, pleased with the plan, and kissed the corner of John’s mouth before standing up to start.

“Let’s.”

The pace of their life on the lake was very different to the one they had both so long lived in. Here, nothing needed to be rushed. They could wake when they wanted, spend the day in bed if they so chose, hike, fish, hunt, go into town… there was no schedule, no design in it. There were no deadlines, no payments, no targets.

There was just them.

Now that summer was dawning, John was just getting used to it; used to the fact that if he wanted to kiss Duncan in their hallway he could, used to the fact that if he wanted to go for a walk with Dog, he could go, used to the fact that if they wanted to spend time apart, they had the space to.

It rarely happened.

Duncan made an enormous omelette for them for lunch, with meat and vegetables fresh from the grocer and covered in cheese. Dog got his new Kong, filled with some treats and a smear of peanut butter for him to nurse by the fireplace.

The rest of the day passed without incident. Duncan climbed onto the couch to read as John took a walk to check that the storm hadn’t damaged anything on the outside of the house, and Dog dozed under Duncan’s hand, stretched out on the rug. When John returned, he crawled on top of Duncan like a cat, uncaring for the book he was trying to hold, and settled comfortable and warm against him to doze as well. Duncan just set his book against John’s shoulder and kept reading.

When John woke it was because Duncan had tensed beneath him. His first thought - as it always was, when he woke unnaturally - was that someone was in the house who shouldn’t be there. His second was that his gun was upstairs, and he didn’t know if he could reach Duncan’s leg holster to get his weapon.

But then he heard it.

Dog lovingly throwing up the missing sock on the rug by their feet.

John groaned and turned his head against Duncan’s chest. He muttered an apology that was met with a soft hand in his hair. John relished the touch, turned his head into it, made a soft sound when Duncan tugged his hair before releasing it again.

“I’ll clean it up.”

“I’ll do it.”

John hummed. “He’s my dog,”

“He’s ours,” Duncan countered. “I’ll do it. Stay.”

John didn’t move, hoping it would deter Duncan from his plan but found the man entirely limber enough to move out from beneath him without landing flat on the floor. He stood gracefully and ran a hand through John’s hair again before moving to get something to clean with. John remained on the couch, turning his head to look at Dog, who looked back with enormous guilty eyes as he sat in front of the mess he’d made.

When Duncan returned, Dog approached him, wiggling his apology, and whined when he was soothed and praised, rather than reprimanded. He sat by as Duncan made quick work of the clean up, licking his lips and turning his head between the floor and Duncan as though asking if he could help. He ducked into the scratch against his head, shifted his feet back and forth as Duncan stepped away again, and turned to make his way to the couch, to John.

“Good Dog,” John told him, taking his time to stroke against his silky ears, between his eyes until Dog squinted in pleasure, tail whacking against the floor. “What a night you’re about to give us, hmm?”

Dog whined, crawling closer until John was leaning over him, idly scratching his belly. When Duncan returned he set his hand to John’s hair in just the same way, smiling when John groaned.

“Do you think that’s the last of it?” He asked. John shook his head, arching into the fingers against his scalp.

“Much as I want to think it is, I highly doubt it. Half of your sweater is still missing.”

Duncan snorted, amused. “Should we sleep here, then? Keep him company.”

John glanced up, considering the man above him who just willingly offered to sleep on the small couch just so John’s dog - their dog - could be sick with company. He raised himself on his elbows and looked at Duncan properly.

“It might get cold,” he said. 

“Not with you draped over me like a rug,” Duncan told him. “And it’s summer.” John smiled.

“It’s a small couch.”

“We’ve worked with less.”

John’s smile widened and he ducked his head with a shrug. It would be easier to clean than the carpet upstairs. They could roll the rug up and leave the floor clear for Dog to meander about. Hell, they could move to the floor themselves, if the couch turned out to be less than ideal.

They’ve worked with less.

When he looked up again, Duncan’s brow was up over his good eye, waiting for an answer. John tilted his head.

“I’ll do dinner, you do wine?” he asked.

Duncan hummed, pleased, and bent to kiss him. “Let’s.” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This silliness has [timestamps](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19194127)!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A delightful shock of pleasure ran up John’s back, just watching Duncan move. His body was scarred, some raised, some pale against the backdrop of otherwise tanned skin, but the way the muscles shifted beneath it spoke of nothing but honed strength. Strength John knew intimately and very much appreciated._
> 
> Another NSFW chapter for y'all, this one ran away with me! (It was meant to be an innocent one!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both an anon and the lovely [DaringD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaringD) asked for John to watch Duncan chop wood. Clearly this was in several heads beautifully enough that it needed to be made immortal on AO3.
> 
> Enjoy irresponsibly~

At first, John thought Duncan was practicing with the bow and arrow. The hiss and thunk felt almost unmistakable to him in the sound’s familiarity, and yet - 

It was a harsher sound, louder, and more hollow than if an arrow reached its target and stuck. It was heavier, too, a deliberate push of air before solid hit solid. Besides, Duncan had no need to practice; he never missed.

The sound came again, and John pushed up on his elbows in bed with a groan, squinting towards the windows. For him, any time before his body actually wanted to get up was too early. It didn’t matter what the actual time was, not when they had all the time in the world. Duncan either didn’t or couldn’t sleep in as long as John always did, so it wasn’t strange for John to wake up alone but -

_Thunk._

\- this just felt the wrong kind of unusual, and that kind of unusual wasn’t often welcome.

With another displeased sound, John moved, arching his back and stretching his legs carefully beneath the sheets, working his muscles from sleep laxity without awakening old injuries. The last thing he needed was to limp around the house all day because he’d tilted his hip out of whack again.

How he and Duncan still managed to walk, was a mystery to both of them, even on a good day.

_Thunk._

John swung his legs over Duncan’s side of the bed and moved towards the window, resting his elbows against the sill as he looked out through the open pane. Colorado in summer was a choose your own adventure game. Some days it was blissful, heat and the smell of the ground enough to intoxicate, other days storms raged so loudly they’d found the best way to wait them out was to lock themselves into the downstairs closet with Dog in his thundershirt until it was over.

Today was somewhere in between, cool enough to lift the hair on John’s arms with the breeze, warm enough that he didn’t find it a deterrent to drive him to put a shirt on. He clasped his hands together, damaged finger curling beneath the others instead of through them, and scanned the expanse of land beneath their window.

He saw Dog first, stretched out on the grass, belly towards the sun, chewing lazily on a chunky branch he’d picked up from somewhere. He had one paw draped over it, as though to hold it still, his other curled up against his side, relaxed. John felt a laugh puff silent through his nostrils at the sight. Dog was a strange thing, still a creature both he and Duncan were learning better and better every day. Stupid as John knew it was, he couldn’t remember what it was like to not have Dog with him. The poor animal had seen John through some of his worst, and had stuck around.

_Thunk._

John’s eyes caught movement in his periphery and he turned towards it, finally seeing Duncan, finally putting the sound together with an action. Duncan bent to take up half of the piece of wood he’d split, tossing it easily onto a slowly growing pile in front of him, at the side of their shed. He tossed the other, still on the stump he’d balanced it on, before reaching for a new log to set in its place.

A delightful shock of pleasure ran up John’s back, just watching Duncan move. His body was scarred, some raised, some pale against the backdrop of otherwise tanned skin, but the way the muscles moved beneath it spoke of nothing but honed strength. Strength John knew intimately and very much appreciated.

He let himself meditate on the way muscles bunched as Duncan grasped the axe in both hands and lifted it above his head. He followed the motion of its descent by proxy of how some flexed and others extended before the -

_\- thunk -_

\- brought his eyes up to take in the entire beautiful form of the man again. John shifted, resting one hand on his elbow against the sill and his chin on top. He let his other hand hang outside, fingers lax, and looked past them as Duncan took another log up.

He supposed he could watch this all day, the simple, hypnotic motion of a man he very much liked performing a mundane yet inescapable chore. Winter was far enough away that this wasn’t an urgent necessity, but John well understood the creeping ache beneath his skin to do _something_. He looked on as Duncan chopped four more logs, the same rhythm as the first few, his strength not stolen yet by the effort of striking an axe down over and over.

The split of the logs was like a metronome and John pushed himself to stand before it lulled him to dozing against the window. That wouldn’t do. Not when Duncan had a whole pile of logs beside him, hours in the day, and John to watch him chop them up. It felt almost voyeuristic, seeing Duncan this way; unhindered by the pressures of work, released from the stifling life in a metropolitan city, allowed to do things at his own pace, for his own pleasure.

John watched, indulging.

He could see the matte sheen of sweat on the tops of Duncan’s shoulders, now, down the line of his spine when he rolled them lazily before reaching for another log. John considered how his preferences hadn’t ever really swung one way or the other. He rarely had opportunities for trysts, his job wasn’t being James Bond, after all, but taking out people who believed themselves to be. If someone offered and he had the time, John let himself enjoy it. He’d had as many successful nights as unsuccessful ones, but he’d never bothered to much think about it until Duncan had dragged him into his room at the Continental seven years ago, until he’d met Helen and found himself willing to change his entire life to keep her in it.

Then his life changed again and he found he’d do anything to keep things as they were, now. To keep this house, and Dog, and Duncan as relaxed as he was chopping wood in the yard.

John rubbed his face with his hands to shove sentimentality back where it belonged at the back of his mind and moved from the window to grab his pants. He could hear the continued sound of chopping wood through the window as he went to brush his teeth, as he drew wet fingers through his hair in a semblance of combing it, as he took up a shirt from the corner of the bed to slip his arms into but not do up. His bare feet barely made a sound against the stairs and the tile in the kitchen, and he noted that the pace with which Duncan was landing the axe was slowing; a more pensive pause, now, between strikes.

John took a bottle of water from the fridge and made his way outside, gesturing for Dog to stay where he was when he saw John and rolled over onto lazy clumsy feet. John waited as Duncan split another log, watched as he tugged a hand through sweaty hair. He came up behind him before he could reach for another, hand out offering the bottle as his lips pressed to the sweat-slick skin against Duncan’s neck.

Duncan took the water, axe landing in the middle of the stump with a precise and decisive strike, and tilted his head to bring John closer.

“I woke you.”

“I’m a light sleeper.”

“Hmm.” John didn’t need to see it to know Duncan was smiling. He rested his chin against Duncan’s shoulder as the other drank, watched his throat work as he swallowed, followed a drop of sweat as it made its way from the sharp corner of Duncan’s jaw to the curve of his clavicle, gathering with others in the middle of his collarbones.

He made a soft pleased sound and wrapped his arms loosely around the man in front of him, fingers clasping wrist.

“You going to do that all day?”

“Will I have an audience?”

“A willing one,” John snorted, turning his nose against the damp hair at the base of Duncan’s neck to breathe him in. “Figured you could use a break.”

“Did you?”

“Mmm,” a mirroring of replies, a reflection of the same intimate amusement between the two of them as John squeezed his arms around Duncan just a little tighter before letting him go, a palm lingering against Duncan’s stomach before slipping against his side.

“Come inside.”

Duncan finished all but a mouthful of water, which he poured from the bottle over the top of his head to cool himself off. He regarded the woodpiles, the split and the whole, before licking the sweat from his top lip and following John inside. Dog waddled in after them, immediately going to the kitchen to thirstily lap from his bowl. Contented, he stretched over the cool tile with a grunt and watched the two of them walk past into the living room.

Duncan caught John gently by the back of his shirt and turned him, hands up to push John’s hair off his face as he kissed him. The other hummed, smiling into it, setting a hand against Duncan’s cheek to hold him close as he kissed back. It would be so simple to indulge in this for a while, to kiss until their lips tingled with the motion, to sink to his knees and work open the button and fly of Duncan’s pants and pull them down, to -

“Sit,” John murmured, grinning when Duncan tried to kiss him again. He allowed a chaste brush of lips before walking Duncan back towards the couch until his legs hit the cushions and he sat. Continuing his own forward momentum, John moved after him, straddling him in a smooth motion and bringing their lips together again with a groan.

Duncan’s skin was hot against his, and they slipped chest to chest as John sat higher, bent over Duncan to deepen their kiss. He could feel Duncan’s pulse speed up against his own, smiled as he felt familiar rough hands spread against his back, bunching the fabric of his shirt as he pulled John nearer. There was nothing stopping them from more, from hands wandering and clothes shifting, from a quick rough release and -

Duncan’s hands went to John’s ass, squeezing, and most thoughts entirely left his brain.

“I was thinking -”

“No,” Duncan’s voice purred low and John swore, obeying. Fuck it. Nothing was stopping them.

Plans change.

He rocked down against him, slipping one arm around Duncan’s middle and curling his feet behind Duncan’s knees. They were impossibly close, already too hot with the summer warmth creeping through the open windows of the house, sweat slick between them as John pushed up on his knees again. He thought of watching Duncan work, the way his strength came through as absolutely effortless, honed from years of being strong. John pressed their foreheads together, wrapping both hands under Duncan’s arms to squeeze his shoulders.

Duncan ducked his head to mouthe against John’s throat, lower still, savoring the press of John’s nails against his back, taking time to taste the ink on his skin. It wasn’t hard to be aroused by him when John loved so completely, almost desperately, when he wanted to be nowhere else. Duncan pressed his lips against a nipple, sucking until it peaked, until John rubbed his hips down against him and made a weak little sound.

Duncan remembered seeing John at the bar the first time, exhausted, nearly shaking with the need to _do something_ , he remembered the way he’d pushed against Duncan when he’d opened the door, the way he’d curled against him after, finally relaxed, and slept.

He’d thought about John for a long time after that.

He’d pulled John just as strongly against him the next time they’d had the opportunity to meet.

“Distracting,” Duncan told him, now, grinning when John dug his fingers harder against him. “Even Dog was letting me work, but you -”

“You woke me up,” John reminded him, rutting down against him again with a laugh. His hands sought lower against Duncan’s back, sweat gathering between his fingers. “Distracted me first.”

When John settled into his lap again they just rocked together, nuzzling warm against each other, sharing breath and soft needy sounds. Neither wanted to move, neither wanted more than just _this_. John brought a hand to Duncan’s chest, scraping his nails gently through the hair there, catching Duncan’s bottom lip between his teeth when he moaned.

Both were close, worked up like teenagers and perfectly contented to finish on the couch in their pants. John turned his head against him, catching his lips at Duncan’s temple, and told him how good it had felt to watch him that morning, how he had wanted to look longer but couldn’t, how he’d _needed_ to touch him, taste him... beneath John, Duncan bucked up, grabbing at John’s shirt, catching his fingers against his belt loops. He tipped his head back and John readily drew his tongue against his racing pulse, shivering when Duncan’s hand slipped beneath his jeans, fingertips catching the hem of his boxers.

Whatever rhythm they’d built was broken, both pushing now against the other to bring him over first. Hungry, biting kisses met and smeared against flushed skin, teeth caught it, tongues drew slow lines against the sweat.

Duncan came first, ducking his head to press against John’s chest, to feel his heart hammering as he lost himself not soon after. They sat together, trembling despite the heat, before Duncan freed his hands to run them through his hair again, head back against the couch to catch his breath. John nuzzled the cushion beside him, heavy in his lap as he did the same.

“What was it you were thinking?” Duncan asked after a while, catching John’s eyes with a grin. “Earlier.”

John snorted, turning into the couch again. He mumbled something, smiling as Duncan pushed him back to sit to hear him properly.

“I was going to give you a massage,” he said, brow up when Duncan looked surprised at the idea. “Absolutely innocent intentions, until this.”

“I think I’d love a massage,” Duncan told him, smiling when John snorted again.

“No,” he replied, intonation pitched to match Duncan’s from before. “You’ve got to work for it now. Whole pile of wood out there by the shed that needs splitting.” He grinned. “You might even have an audience.”

Duncan cursed him affectionately, grasping John’s shirt to tug him down to kiss him again, languid and lazy as they sat together, sweaty, messy and sated.

“I suppose I’d better get back to it then,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some ideas or questions? [Hit me up!](https://suntosirius.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> Have some spare change? [Buy me a coffee.](https://ko-fi.com/A7363ZWX)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It wasn’t hard to read the signs, but John had no idea how to help. Whenever he felt the overwhelming black hole of memory’s gaping maw he’d flood it with alcohol and hope it closed up on its own. He was the last person to give advice on how to deal with past trauma, and “pretend it doesn’t exist” wouldn’t cut it here, they both knew that._
> 
> It isn't all fun and games... a feelsy angsty chapter to tide you over. SFW

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was asked for by an anon, they asked for a fight and making up afterwards. This chapter mentions PTSD, different manifestations of it. If that's a potential trigger, maybe give this one a miss. It's not graphic, but you never know. Keep safe lovelies.
> 
> A huge thank you to two very special people who consulted with me on how to write PTSD based on battle/war and abuse. It means so much to me. I hope I did you proud.

John noticed it first in town. 

By now, going in had become routine; every two weeks for a major shop, and any time they needed something small and didn’t feel like paying exorbitant shipping fees on Amazon. The nearest town wasn’t exactly expansive; it serviced those who lived around it, and wasn’t on any of the main tourist routes. A handful over a thousand people if that, in the township.

But John noticed the way Duncan’s entire body stiffened when he stepped out of the car, the way he skimmed the ground, the shopfronts, the people walking on the street, quick decisions flickering behind his one good eye as though he were on a mission. As though he were on a job.

He didn’t reply when John asked if there was something wrong. He shrugged, shook his head, and shoved his chin in the direction they were heading without a word. The rest of the trip went off without a hitch, though it didn’t get past John how stiff Duncan’s movements were, how hard he fought not to jerk or flinch when someone spoke too loudly, or a laugh carried down the main street.

He was wound tight. Enough that he smoked as they drove home, cigarette loose in the fingers that hung out the window.

To John’s relief, Duncan softened when they returned home, all too happy to be licked all over by Dog when they came through the door, all too happy to wrestle with him in the entryway before whistling for Dog to follow him to the car so he and John could unpack it.

He softened, but he wasn’t relaxed. Still tensed as he returned John’s kiss, as he sat stock still on the couch and stared at the blank television, as he excused himself to go upstairs.

It wasn’t hard to read the signs, but John had no idea how to help. Whenever he felt the overwhelming black hole of memory’s gaping maw he’d flood it with alcohol and hope it closed up on its own. He was the last person to give advice on how to deal with past trauma, and “pretend it doesn’t exist” wouldn’t cut it here, they both knew that.

So he stayed downstairs late into the evening, Dog curled up against his side as he put the TV on low and set his eyes to the middle distance. Duncan hadn’t come down since they’d gotten home, and John hadn’t bothered him. What would be the use? It was one thing to watch dramatized versions of PTSD, how easily it could be cured by opening up and talking about it just once, how easily things could be solved by desperately holding on to someone until they gave in and cried it out.

Real life didn’t work like that.

Real life was insomnia and trembling hands, voices of people you’ve killed echoing in your head when you turned it too quickly, getting overwhelmed by people around you, near you, absolutely certain that they meant you harm.

John didn’t know what time it was when he finally went upstairs, but when he climbed into bed he didn’t touch Duncan, relieved to hear his steady, slow breathing suggesting he had managed to get to sleep, at least. Wouldn’t do to wake him.

It was Duncan who woke him, instead.

Certain things about being an assassin were less taught and more learned. One could hold an entire goddamn lecture about staying alert and being able to wake your instincts at any hour of the day when called to action and it would mean jack shit until one had to actually do it.

John had had to enough times that it _was_ instinct. As soon as a touch was too strong, too sharp, too unusual, his survival kicked into high gear. He wasn’t even sure if his brain had fully woken by the time his body was moving. He knew his nose ached, his wrist throbbed, and his lungs were tight. He backtracked. There was the telltale slide of blood against skin from where he’d been elbowed in the face, the hard grip currently twisting his carpus, the arm against his throat.

Response was instinct too. To get the form on top of him beneath him, to get his entire body away before he figured out what had led to the attack. He bucked up, free hand dropping to find the pressure point behind Duncan’s knee and pinching. It was enough to lift some of his weight to give John the space to squirm free, twist his hand out of the practiced grip and allow himself a gulp of air.

He also ended up sprawled on the floor, reaching immediately under the bedside table to the knife he kept there. His hand slipped. Once. Again. Before he managed to work heavy fingers around the handle and pressing it blade-flat against his arm for better control. His legs curled beneath him, toes to the floor to spring up if he had to.

On the bed, Duncan didn’t move. He remained crouched over where John had seconds ago been held down by him. He stayed absolutely still until he dropped his weight to the bed, body trembling with adrenaline, a hand coming up to press against his face.

 _“Lort,_ ” he whispered. _“For fanden._ ”

 _“Bare træk vejret,_ ” John told him softly, knuckles still white around the handle of his knife, muscles tensed to fight, heart tattooing panic against his throat. “Just breathe, Duncan.”

For a moment, that’s all both of them did. Air hissing between gritted teeth, panted past bloodied lips. Then John pushed himself to kneel and reached up to turn the light on, slipping his knife back in its sheath under the table.

Duncan didn’t move, just closed his eye against the light before slowly opening it again. He looked unharmed, John hadn’t managed to do anything but escape him in the few seconds of half-awake chaos. He brought his hand up absently to touch his nose, tentatively check with the tips of his fingers that it hadn’t been broken again. He tucked the bottom of his shirt up to stem the blood and sat up higher.

“Duncan,” he said again, voice stronger this time, more awake, actually _here_. “Hey.”

The other didn’t even turn to John, his trembling turning to actual shaking until he managed another breath and forced it out slowly between his teeth.

“I hit you.” he managed.

“I’ve been hit worse,” John pulled his shirt away enough to fold it over, to press a clean corner to his nostrils again. “Can you look at me?”

 _Must have rolled over in my sleep,_ John thought, _must have reached out to grasp him as I usually do and he’d -_

“Duncan, look at me.”

“Last time I woke like that I -”

“This isn’t last time,” John said. “This is now, and I’m fine. You need to look at me.”

When Duncan finally did, John pulled the shirt away, setting his elbows to the bed as he leaned against it and looked up at him. He made eye contact, held it until Duncan looked away first, dropping his head back with a groan and tucking his bottom lip between his teeth. John didn’t say anything for a while. Not while Duncan tried to fight tears off with the pain his teeth were pushing into his skin, not when he failed, and cried anyway. Not until Duncan let out a shuddering breath and sniffed.

“Last time I woke like that,” he repeated, speaking slowly, deliberately. “I had a gun.” he swallowed, rubbed crudely at his face before dropping his hand in his lap again. “I’d had Rusty less than six hours. I wasn’t used to him yet.”

John blinked, taking in the unspoken confession, letting his head slowly drop to rest against his loose fists on the bed as he gave Duncan his space to collect himself again.

“Is that why there’s a rule about no guns in the bedroom?” John asked after a while, relieved when he heard Duncan’s breath shift into a laugh, bare, but there.

“Yes.”

John took another breath, working on keeping his inhales steady, his exhales slow, for Duncan to measure his own against. It took him a moment before he heard the other sound in the room, the barely voiced squeaky whine that came from under the bed.

He dropped a hand but didn’t call Dog to him, he let the animal make his way over on his own, at his own pace. John didn’t know Dog’s history, he had enough to assume he’d been in a bad way before John had taken him home. Once in a while sounds frightened him, a door slammed accidentally by the wind could send him into the laundry faster than food called him to the kitchen.

Their struggle, albeit silent, had spooked Dog under the bed.

John remained as he was, face against his hand on the bed, other hand down for Dog to nuzzle into when his cold nose found his fingertips. He could feel Duncan shift against the mattress, moving his weight off his knees and onto his hip instead. He could feel his own pulse slow back to its resting rate. He licked his lips, tasted the iron there, and turned his face up again.

“I’ll take the couch,” he said. Duncan shook his head.

“Don’t. Please, I just -”

John stroked absently against Dog’s muzzle, drew his hand nearer so he could rest in his lap, halfway out from under the bed before reaching out to draw his knuckles down Duncan’s side. He moved his fingers up and down, over and over, a slow and deliberate reminder of the present. That he was here, that Duncan was, that Dog was.

He stopped only when Duncan curled his own hand against him, drawing his thumb over John’s knuckles as he so often did to calm him. John hummed, just a note of appreciation, before pushing to stand up and sit on the edge of the bed instead, wincing when pins and needles spread up his legs.

He reached for Duncan again and turned their faces together, pressing his forehead against Duncan’s and a hand against his face.

“I’m here,” he told him calmly, words mumbled warm between them. “You’re here. In the middle of nowhere Colorado. Just you, and me, and Dog.”

Duncan’s breath hitched a little and John soothed that away too, sitting close and sharing this for a moment longer. He parted his lips when Duncan bent to kiss him, keeping his eyes closed and his movements languid, pressing reassurances and forgiveness to Duncan’s tongue.

“I’m here,” Duncan repeated, turning his nose against John’s as he winced silently but nodded.

“You are.”

“God, why am I here?”

“Because you want to be,” John told him. “Because I want you to be.”

Duncan leaned heavier into him, moving to press his forehead against John’s shoulder as John raised his head and turned his cheek against Duncan’s hair. He stroked his hand up and down his back, thumb bumping along the vertebrae. After a while, John moved, not enough to push Duncan away, but enough to settle himself back into bed again, taking Duncan down to lie against him.

For a while they just lay there, the light still on, the dark still heavy outside. John heard Dog shuffle out from under the bed and shake himself, but he didn’t jump up yet. He mentally followed the sounds he made around the room, familiar, warm, animal sounds that brought such comfort to John he couldn’t even fathom it. When John reached for the blankets to cover them again, Duncan kissed his neck, up under his jaw, and pressed their lips together as John drew the covers over their heads.

Quiet, dark, warm. They lay pressed close, Duncan’s arms sliding around John to hold him nearer, to feel him alive against him when he so easily could not have been, had Duncan not woken so quickly from his nightmares, had he punched up instead of across, had he not felt the agony run through his leg that made him jerk away. He listened to his heartbeat. He listened to John’s breathing and felt it move against his hair. He listened until he was certain John was asleep, somehow still trusting Duncan enough to take his guard down around him, to sleep beside him.

He didn’t know what to do with that. It was overwhelming in the best possible way. So Duncan just tucked himself more comfortably against this familiar body he knew so well, loved so well, and tried to sleep.

He must have managed, because when next he woke, their positions were shifted, with John asleep on his chest, one hand curled around his hip, and Dog was making a nest at the end of the bed between their feet.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was certainly a dog, but it was emaciated, mangey, and absolutely tiny. Duncan had come home twenty minutes after leaving, surprising John at the door with this thing in his hands instead of the groceries he’d gone out for. They’d set it on one of Dog’s towels on the counter to have a closer look. Dog sat at their feet, just as curious, but unable to reach the counter to give his opinion._
> 
> SFW... our retired gentlemen find an abandoned dog...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...not abandoned for long! Check at the bottom for what we think she looks like ;)
> 
> I can't remember who suggested they get the least manly dog ever, but here she is!

“Where?”

“The side of the road,” Duncan said, frowning. “I wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t moved.”

“I’m surprised it can move,” John observed, bending closer to touch the little thing with the side of his finger. Beneath him, the tiny creature wriggled, whined softly.

It was certainly a dog, but it was emaciated, mangey, and absolutely tiny. Duncan had come home twenty minutes after leaving, surprising John at the door with this thing in his hands instead of the groceries he’d gone out for. They’d set it on one of Dog’s towels on the counter to have a closer look. Dog sat at their feet, just as curious, but unable to reach the counter to give his opinion.

“I’ll take her to the vet,” John offered. He couldn’t help but smile when both Duncan and Dog made a very similar sound of displeasure at the idea. “Or you can. Finders keepers,”

“We could both go.”

“And Dog?”

Duncan looked down, considering the animal sitting at his feet. “ _Hund_ ,” he said. “Would you like to go to the vet?”

Dog’s ears flattened, brows drawing together, and he shuffled back on his butt until he pressed against John’s shins. Duncan looked up again.

“I’m sure Dog wouldn’t mind holding down the fort alone.”

John drove. One of the rare times Duncan willingly gave him the driver’s seat. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust John’s driving, it was that he very much liked his car. It was the first vehicle he’d owned that was properly registered under his legal name - well, a favourite illegal one - the first car he’d chosen because he’d wanted it. But as John drove, Duncan didn’t even bother to look out the window, eye set on the little thing in his arms.

The dog slept, curled into an impossibly tiny ball, occasionally trembling despite being wrapped in Dog’s towel and held close in Duncan’s palms.

“Who could have left her?” Duncan was saying. John turned to glance at him, feeling the corners of his mouth tilt upwards watching how Duncan was already doting on the little thing.

“Maybe she ran off?” He suggested. But he knew it was unlikely. A dog so little, in the middle of the mountainous and forested nowhere of where they lived? She had been dropped off there, or lost there, but she had not come on her own. He’d barely parked the car before Duncan was out of his seat and around the front heading into the vet’s office.

“She’s not chipped,” the young nurse said, running the device over the little dog again. “No collar or tags, and she’s not in great shape.” She drew back the dog’s lip and pressed her gloved hand against the gums, narrowing her eyes at whatever she saw there. She pinched softly the skin on her back and watched how long it took to settle flat again.

“Dehydrated,” she said. “Significant mange infection, her left eye looks infected. Safe bet she hasn’t been flead or wormed for a good while either, poor thing.”

Duncan drummed his fingers against the metal table as he kept his eye on the dog.

“Will she make it?”

“Oh, sure,” the nurse shrugged, but it was hardly indifferent. She touched the little girl so gently, handled her like she was her own. “She’s not at death’s door, but she’ll need time and a lot of TLC before she’s on her feet again. We’ll need to keep her for a few days for observations if you’d like -”

“Yes,” John and Duncan replied in tandem, catching each other’s eye before looking aside, to the amusement of the nurse.

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll get you to fill some forms out for her, make up a recovery plan and get her started on a drip. You bring your other dog in don’t you?”

John blinked, Duncan turned to defer to him.

“Yes,” he said.

“Then your details will be in the system. Look, one thing I will tell you is that when she’s here, we’re obligated to put her up on the local social media groups to see if anyone’s missing her.”

Duncan made a sound in his throat. “Is that necessary?”

“Unfortunately it’s a legal requirement,” the nurse sighed. “For one week. If no one claims her by then, she’s all yours.”

“Ours?”

“She’ll do much better in a home with people who care,” the nurse replied, smiling. “Besides, you’re already enamored, I know that look. It’s the look I give any stray that comes through here, wishing I could take them home. This little one is very lucky you found her.”

Duncan drove home, and John noticed with amusement that he didn’t seem to care at all for the speed limit.

“You know it’s useless trying to find anyone,” John told him the next morning, leaning over the back of the couch as he watched Duncan typing quickly into the search bar. “Nothing will pop up for ‘lost dog Colorado’ that will match her. There’s too many of them.”

“It isn’t really her I’m searching for,” Duncan replied. “Her we’ve found. She’s safe. Those who had her before…”

“Please don’t tell me you’re already harboring a vendetta,” John muttered, bringing his mug to his lips to suck coffee between them. “People are assholes. You know this. You’ve spent your life either killing them or working for them.”

Duncan hummed, but continued his sleuthing, John watching over his shoulder for a while more before pushing to stand.

“Seriously. Don’t go on a killing spree because of a dog. It becomes an exhausting body count.”

“Speaking from experience?”

John paused a moment before moving to walk around the couch to stand in front of Duncan.

“Duncan,” he didn’t move until the other looked up. “How did I get into this mess.”

“You never told me. I never asked.”

“What did you hear?”

Duncan grunted, leaning back, hands on the keyboard but still. “Russians stole your car and killed your dog.”

John raised an eyebrow, tilting his head as though encouraging the cogs in Duncan’s to turn a little faster. When he blinked, shaking his head, John sighed.

“I figured it was overblown bullshit to make you out to be crazier than you usually are,” Duncan said. “I didn’t think you’d rack up a body count that high over a puppy.”

“It wasn’t just a puppy,” John muttered, moving past the couch towards the kitchen again. He scratched behind Dog’s ears when he found him by the counter, and set his mug into the sink.

“Are you saying it’s not worth it?” Duncan called from the living room.

“Oh, it’s certainly worth it,” John replied. “I just don’t recommend it after retirement.”

There was a pause before Duncan snorted, swore, and shut the laptop.

For a week, they waited for news from the vet. They would get regular emails from the nurse updating them on the status of the little dog - at least two years old, not a puppy anymore - on how well she was doing on a regular diet, how her skin had already begun to recover with the medicated baths she was given twice a day, how no one had come forward to claim her.

“We should name her Bug,” John said one evening, pressed half-asleep against Duncan as they “watched” television. Dog was curled in a ball over both of their legs, keeping them warm.

“Why Bug?”

“Because we already have Dog.” John reasoned. Duncan didn’t argue the point.

Exactly a week from the day Duncan found the little dog - Bug - on the side of the road dehydrated and mangey, they returned to the vet to pick her up again.

“She has been desexed,” the nurse told them, handing over a cat carry crate with the little thing inside. “And she’s in a cone to prevent her from chewing herself. Keep that on as much as you can, for as long as you can. Bring her back in ten days to get the stitches removed and we’ll check her over then. Oh,”

She looked apologetic, crossing her arms as she regarded the two of them. “Look, I didn’t want to say in the emails, it’s not something you really do in writing. We couldn’t save her eye.”

John took the crate, smiling as he slapped Duncan on the shoulder. “We can deal with that, I think.” He told her.

The nurse looked between them, her expression unreadable for a moment before she pressed her clipboard to her chest and stepped closer.

“You guys been together long?” She asked. John tensed, for no other reason than because he hadn’t heard that question directed at him in a long time. Duncan fared better.

“Seven years,” he offered. The nurse’s face melted into a smile.

“Aww. And all that time in Colorado?”

“No we uh, we met in New York,” John replied. “Just retired here.”

“What did you do before?”

John made a sound, something between a sigh and the noise Dog made when he was asked what he’d done with his Kong, and he knew he’d eaten it.

“He was a carpenter,” he said, nodding to Duncan. “For a good long while. Very good with his hands.”

He bit the inside of his lip before a smile could escape, breaking the entire illusion that they were actually normal human beings living normal human lives. When the nurse turned expectantly to Duncan he replied only:

“Librarian.”

The look John gave him could break glass, but Duncan didn’t waver, and the nurse didn’t notice. Without keeping them much longer she handed over the last of the paperwork for them to sign, handed them a hefty bag filled with the little dog’s medication and shampoo and a few toys, and sent them on their way.

“ _Librarian?_ ” John asked, setting the crate into the back seat and belting it into place.

“I panicked,” Duncan told him honestly, before opening the door to get behind the wheel.

For the first few nights, they kept Bug in her crate. And for the first few nights, she slept in it. Dog kept vigil just outside its door, curiously peering in to see this new coned and collared stranger.

Duncan and John took turns giving her medication, drawing up her medicated baths, checking over her wounds, and carrying her like an infant against them. She relished the attention, setting tiny paws to their chins to lick stubbly faces when they gave her a break from her cone, happily wriggling in their hold when they found her special scratchy spot with gentle fingers.

She approached Dog as though she were the same size as him, with her cone and without it, and when she finally gave voice it was sharp and loud and startling like a bell.

After she got her stitches removed, her routine was changed. Similar medication but in different doses, baths once a day instead of twice, and a reminder to keep her indoors until her fur began to grow out.

“She’ll get sunburn,” the nurse warned them, smirking. “But a rash vest might help.”

Soon, Bug had more clothes than Dog did.

Within a month she had a stubbly little coat of her own, patchy dapples of black and grey and ginger. Without her cone she loved wrestling Dog, loved crawling over him when he was stretched out in the sun on his back, legs splayed and tail wagging. She loved to sleep between John and Duncan on the bed, digging up a nest between their pillows and curling up in a ball there.

She loved tailing them, either of them, when they so much as got up to go to the bathroom. She loved to steal socks.

“Whichever the washing machine doesn’t get, Bug picks up,” John muttered one day, knotting two mismatched socks together and tossing the new toy for Bug to drag away to deliver, proudly, to Duncan.

He glanced down at Dog at his side, watching the way his eyes followed his silly sister down the hall and around the corner.

“Good boy,” he told him, smiling when Dog’s tail whacked against his bare feet. “Go get her,”

With a grunt, Dog pushed himself up to waddle after her, always happy to play, even to play-fight, but never coming close to hurting her. If John really thought about it, he knew that it was more likely that feisty little Bug would hurt Dog than Dog would hurt her. She was a whirlwind.

He looked down when he heard a little yip at his feet, and saw Bug back with her doggy grin staring up at him. Her fur was longer, now, almost too long, but it kept growing. For the time she was coming in for regular vet checks, the nurse had guessed that she was either a chihuahua or a Pomeranian, and John had groaned at the idea of either.

Not exactly the breed that came to mind as a companion for two assassins.

Then again, they owned Dog, and he was the most gentle creature John had ever met.

He bent, taking up the little thing in the palm of his hand and brought her up to his eye level.

“Hello lil love Bug,” he told her. “What new chaos have you wrought?”

Bug wiggled her feet, setting them to John’s chest when he brought her nearer. Her tiny tail wagged hard enough that she could take off using it as a propeller. He buried his injured hand in her fur and ducked his head to breathe her in. Clean, warm, dog smell. One of the best smells in the world.

He accepted the little tongue as Bug licked him, laughed when she tried to jump from him into the clean laundry. He set her under his arm and made his way out to Duncan in the kitchen, depositing her on the floor beside his feet, next to Dog, who was looking up expectantly as Duncan continued cooking. John pressed a kiss behind his hair and stole a bean from the stir fry on the stove.

“She’s claimed two more socks,” Duncan said, smiling as John confirmed it, nudging the new toy aside with his foot as he moved to take down two plates for them. “We’ll have none left soon.”

“You can start borrowing Dog’s clothes,” John said, grinning when Duncan shoved his shoulder affectionately.

“You’ll borrow Bug’s.”

“One of her sweaters is about the size of a sock,” John agreed. “With extra holes in it. I suppose we’ll have to go into town.”

“Oh?”

“For new socks,” John confirmed, leaning back against the counter to look at Duncan as he kept cooking, narrowing his eyes when Duncan raised his own to him. “Should take the dogs.”

“Should we?”

“Dog likes town,” John reminded him. Duncan snorted.

“And Bug needs to make sure we buy socks she wants to claim.”

“Can’t leave her wanting.”

“You spoil her,” Duncan said, unable to hide the smile when John raised his eyebrows. He leaned over their dinner to grab some mince from the other pan to pop into his mouth next; a new batch of home-made dog food concocted by Duncan in his more whimsical moments. John knew he needn’t say more on the matter, so he didn’t.

“Dinner,” John said instead. “Then bed, I think. Before we let the dogs in.”

He looked at Duncan and smiled, mischievous, before holding out a plate for him to fill with their meal. And with a pleased, acquiescing nod, Duncan did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Meet Bug!](https://previews.123rf.com/images/tenthmuse/tenthmuse1310/tenthmuse131000023/23120224-blue-merle-pomeranian-gazing-out-window.jpg)
> 
> Also the longer I write them the easier it is to write crack for them. Them being domestic is the cutest thing on earth for me.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You look like shit,” Duncan murmured, offering a dry smile as he shut the door behind them. Dog was already shaking off in front of the fire._
> 
> _“Got thrown off the Continental,” John replied._
> 
> The night John showed up at Duncan's door, as requested by a few lovely people in Tumblr! 
> 
> SFW

“Duncan.”

He didn’t have to ask who this was. Duncan knew the timbre of that voice as it purred against him late at night, as it woke him in the morning, as it teased, amused, through a burner phone when he sat in the car on a stakeout.

He hadn’t heard it in five years.

“John.”

There was a silence, drawn out and interrupted only by intermittent harsh intakes of breath. Wherever he was, John was in pain. Duncan swallowed. Waited. Didn’t press for any more information. Beyond the window, it was raining, washing away the snow that had fallen the day before. There would be black ice on the roads as it froze overnight.

He hadn’t heard from John for five years, but he had heard about him. 

He’d heard that he’d gotten out of the business. He’d heard that he’d lost his wife. He’d heard that within the space of a week, part of the Russian mob lost a valuable faction due to stupidly getting in range of John’s wrath. He’d heard that there was a price on John’s head. 

He’d been offered it.

“I’m -”

Duncan swallowed, cast his eye to the window again as he held the phone against his cheek. He was in trouble. That much was clear. But John had never been one to be given easy-outs. He’d never been one for cruelty. He had never been one to grovel. If he was calling…

“The house is still standing,” Duncan said after a moment. “If you want to crash.”

John made a sound through the phone, a pained and soft thing that Duncan knew very well; he’d had his ribs kicked in before too. He didn’t envy him the recovery.

“There’s fifteen million out on me,” John told him. Duncan grunted.

“Don’t need the fucking money,” he replied.

“Others might.”

Quiet, then, as both considered the situation, the danger, before Duncan cleared his throat. “Can you get here?”

“Yes.”

“Then get here.”

It took John two days. He’d run out of favors to call in, was taking the car only due to the mercy of whoever had helped him last. He wouldn’t have made it onto a plane. He’d messaged Duncan an ETA and Duncan waited with the door open as he watched the twin headlights make their way up the drive. It hardly mattered that the house was compromised - if it was - they would be leaving it in the morning.

When the car stopped, it took a few moments for the door to open, and then, the person out of it wasn’t John, and it wasn’t a person, but a heavyset grey dog. Duncan watched as the animal backed up, sat in the wet and obediently watched the car. One foot, another, barely keeping balance, and then John was leaning against the car trying to keep himself upright.

Duncan walked out far enough to meet John beneath the small awning, grasping his shoulder then lower down on his arm when he made an agonized sound at the pressure. Behind him, the car started to back up, swinging headlights over the woods and sleet. The dog sat beside John obediently, looking up at them both through the rain.

“Didn’t know you worked with a partner,” Duncan said, voice quiet, and felt the tension leave John just a little.

“He’s new.”

Duncan gestured with his head and John commanded the dog - named Dog - inside ahead of them. Now that the car was gone, John leaned heavier against Duncan, gratefully accepting his help to get inside.

“You look like shit,” Duncan murmured, offering a dry smile as he shut the door behind them. Dog was already shaking off in front of the fire.

“Got thrown off the Continental,” John replied. It took Duncan a moment to realize he wasn’t joking. When he looked at him in shock, John shrugged. “I don’t know.”

No one should be able to survive a fall from such a height. Not even John Wick.

But here he was.

“I’m not sure what isn’t broken,” John added after a while, wincing as Duncan set him to lean against the counter in the tiny kitchen. The cabin was barely large enough for Duncan alone. They’d have to make do for a day or so before they could make a move out of state.

Without a word, Duncan moved to work loose John’s tie, letting it drop to the floor as he helped John out of his jacket. Bullet proof or not, it had seen war. Shreds of fabric clung to John’s shirt when he pulled it away. Shreds of skin and dried blood clung to his shirt when he removed that next. When Duncan looked up at him, John was pressing the back of his wrist to his mouth and shaking, doing everything in his power to keep the sounds of pain at bay. From the look of him, he was about to lose consciousness and do himself more harm by falling to the floor.

Duncan noticed but didn’t comment on the fact that John was short one finger. He gently pulled his hand aside and set both of his on either side of John’s face, holding him steady.

“Food?” John closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly. “Water?” John snorted, shook his head again. “Drugs?”

“Can’t remember.”

Duncan hummed, gently drawing a thumb beneath John’s eye before stepping away to set the kettle to the stove. When he returned he made sure John was balanced enough not to fall as he bent to remove his shoes next.

The house was warm enough from the heat of the fireplace that when John stood completely bare in the kitchen he was shaking from adrenaline and pain, not cold.

“Bath,” Duncan told him. John groaned.

“I’ll pass out.”

“Good. You could use the rest.”

John couldn’t argue that. He just let Duncan do what he needed. At this point, he didn’t care what happened to him at all; he and Dog were out of New York, away from Winston, away from the Bowery King and the fifteen million. He was in the house of the only man he trusted with his damn life; whatever that life was worth now.

He still couldn’t believe Duncan had let him show up here, after all the years they hadn’t seen each other, hadn’t spoken.

He should have called.

He realized he’d been dozing on his feet when Duncan pressed a glass to his lips for him to sip from. He opened his mouth obediently to accept the pills that followed, drank again, swallowed.

“What is it?”

 

“Does it matter?”

“Guess not.”

“Move,”

Duncan gently guided John from the kitchen through to the tiny bathroom. He sat him down on the toilet as he ran a bath. Duncan settled on his knees in front of John and looked up at him, taking in as much of the damage as he could in the low light. He’d taken more than just a beating. It looked like John had been put through a meat grinder. Duncan knew that feeling well. He was still recovering from his own recent betrayal.

He caught John’s eye and tilted his head in question.

“You’re down one eye,” John mumbled.

“You’re down one fifth of a hand.”

John’s brows raised in acknowledgement. “Consequences.”

“Retirement,” Duncan replied, smile quirking. He watched John’s lips turn upwards. He hadn’t seen him in a long time, but he had hardly changed.

When the bath was full enough, Duncan helped John into it, letting him settle as comfortably as he could. He didn’t linger, moving back into the main part of the house to consider his options. The dog was by the fire now, warming himself, and looked up when Duncan came in. He didn’t growl, didn’t flinch in fear, did nothing at all but watch as Duncan slowly approached him and knelt beside him holding out a hand.

He only reached to pet him when the animal let him, crawling closer and setting his head to the floor with a deep sigh. He didn’t look worse for wear, no damage done to him that John had suffered, thank God. Duncan petted the dog behind the ears pensively, listening out for any sounds of pain from the bathroom. When he stood to move to the kitchen again, Dog followed him.

Beyond his pants, which were also scraped and torn, there wasn’t much left of John’s clothes for Duncan to rescue. He methodically wrapped them in a trash bag, put them into the bottom of another. He brewed coffee, for want of something to do, and pulled a bottle from the cupboard to set to the counter to mix in with it. He found something in the fridge he felt was safe for a dog to eat and set it into a plate for him, watching Dog hungrily gobble up half a ham sandwich and lap water from a large mug.

He had no idea what else he could possibly do, beyond make sure John got into the bed and didn’t fall off it.

He returned to the bathroom, found John half asleep in it, the water cooling, milky with blood and dirt. Duncan drew a knuckle softly against his face until John roused, and smiled at him.

“Coffee?”

John blinked. “Please.”

“I gave your dog something,”

“Thanks.”

“Not much in the house for us, though.”

John shook his head _it doesn’t matter_. “Not hungry.”

“Liar.”

John snorted, brought a hand to his face and winced when his injured finger caught in his hair. Duncan watched him.

“We’ll need to leave the state,” he said. “Once you’re well enough to sit up.”

“I’ve got funds,” John said. 

“Not necessary. I finally got my retirement payout.” Duncan replied, chewing his lip before reaching for a towel to set by the bath for John. “We can work out the details later. You need sleep.”

“I’ll take the couch.”

“Of course you will,” Duncan muttered, shaking his head as he left the bathroom again to check on Dog, or the coffee, or to just be in another room for a while. 

He hadn’t been near John in a long time. Though their relationship had never been particularly defined, it had grown to mean something. Then it ended. And now John was back, half-dead asking for help, trusting Duncan to help him.

Duncan rubbed his face and poured a cup of coffee before moving to check on the fire, adding another log and opening the flue to bring the flames up to a blaze. He turned down the bed. He added a swig of whiskey to his cup as he passed the kitchen again and drank it down hungrily.

“Duncan?”

He awkwardly swung his way into the bathroom.

John gave him an apologetic look. “Could use a hand. Please.”

Duncan didn’t know where to hold him without hurting him more. John’s chest was a canvas of yellows and purples and reds. His shoulders radiated pain. One looked like it had been pulled from its socket and badly put back. Cuts. Scrapes. A goddamn _brand_ on his back. Stab wounds, burns. Welts.

Lord.

He helped John to the main room again and sat him on the bed. He shoved a cup of coffee into his hands and shook the whiskey bottle in question until John nodded. When Duncan returned the bottle and turned to John again, Dog was at his side, resting his fat head on John’s lap as he stroked him.

Duncan watched him, looked on as John drank his coffee, winced when he moved, groaned as he dropped his head back.

He looked so vulnerable.

Duncan thought back to the last time they were together, over five years ago. He thought back to John’s grin, to the bruise growing heavy beneath his eye from the fight he’d quite literally just come from. He thought back to the pleasure they brought to each other, the way they had fallen asleep heavy together, John snoring softly against him.

Five years.

He hadn’t expected a promise of fidelity. He’d hoped for at least one phone call in those five years, though.

Hell. What did it matter? Seeing John again brought that same warmth to Duncan’s chest as before.

Duncan moved nearer, drew a careful hand through John’s hair and let him rest his head against him with a sigh.

“Thank you,” John mumbled, licking his lips before taking another pained breath.

“Sleep,” Duncan told him. “Recover.”

“That will take time,”

“Then take time,”

John turned into him a little more, breathing Duncan in. There was a deep affection there, one that had grown from countless meetings throughout the years. Because they wanted to. Because they were able to. Affection that offered refuge and comfort and pleasure all at the same time. Affection that hadn’t gone away, even when someone else had come into John’s life.

He didn’t know why he deserved it.

“Where will we go?” John asked him after a while.

“Colorado, I think.”

“Got a place?”

“We’ll get one.”

John hummed, bringing his injured hand up to rest against Duncan’s elbow. “Mountains are nice.”

“Good for dogs.” Duncan added, smiling when John snorted.

“Just the one Dog,” he said.

Duncan continued to stroke John’s hair, running the damp strands through his fingers, ignoring how blood smeared from them where John hadn’t bothered to wash it. He didn’t care. 

It didn’t matter.

“Do you want me to stay?” Duncan asked him, letting go of John when he sat up again, looking up at him. 

“Please,” John said, watching Duncan until he blinked, a lazy acquiescence.

He stepped away only to get a spare shirt and briefs for John to wear to sleep, taking his towel from him when he dressed. He checked the fire again, checked the doors, found more pain killers and a glass of water for when John would inevitably need them in the morning.

When he returned, he drew his sweater over his head, stepped out of his pants and turned off the light in the main room, leaving just the fire to light the space.

He climbed into bed, unsure what to do with the five year gap between them. Before, he would draw John to him, sometimes he wouldn’t even have to, with the man determined to sleep over the entire bed, Duncan’s presence hardly a turn-off from such a mission. Now, he looked over to make sure John was still breathing, to make sure he was actually here. In the end he just reached out a hand, enough to draw his thumb against John’s knuckles until the other turned his head to him, eyes barely open.

He watched Duncan until his eyes closed entirely, until his breathing eased to a slow steady rhythm, broken only by how shallowly he had to breathe to avoid pain to his ribs. Duncan held his hand until he himself fell asleep, uncaring when Dog made his way off the bed and to the fireplace again, settling before it on the rug.

He woke with John nearer, still on his back but his head turned so his lips were pressing to Duncan’s shoulder. He let his eyes close again, dozing warm and close. Safe. A refuge for the man beside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter ideas? [Hit me up](www.suntosirius.tumblr.com/ask)  
> Have some spare change? [Buy me a coffee?](https://ko-fi.com/waterthemuse)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“So?” Duncan asked, smile tilting crooked on his face._
> 
> _“Fuck.” John told him, succinctly._
> 
> _Duncan’s smile spread into a grin, bright and warm. “I suppose you’d better, then.”_
> 
> Remember the sweater tragically lost to Dog in [chapter 6](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19050040/chapters/45674422)? Thank the ever-amazing [DaringD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaringD) for this follow-up wonder.  
> NSFW

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personal headcanon: John is a flirty bastard when he wants to be. Duncan is somewhat head over heels.

John had taken both dogs into town with him, leaving Duncan to his own devices in the house. He dozed on the couch for a while. He opened the house and let the cool spring air through it. He hung both dog beds - rarely used - and their duvet in the sun to air out. He enjoyed a bagel that didn’t have to be eaten over the kitchen sink because no one was there to try and steal it from him - John just as much a danger to Duncan’s favourite snack as the dogs were.

He dozed on the couch again.

He was woken by the unmistakable press of tiny dog feet on his chest and opened his eye to smile at Bug who stood atop him, puppy grin in place, bright purple bandana knotted around her neck.

“Love Bug,” he murmured, grinning when the dog bent to thoroughly lick him clean. He was damn near winded when Dog joined them on the couch, pushing Bug aside to lick Duncan’s face next.

He heard John in the kitchen, setting paper bags down, opening the fridge. He laughed when a sharp whistle beckoned both dogs back to him, setting Duncan free. Whatever John gave them immediately set the dogs to opposite ends of the house to hide their treasure, and allowed Duncan a clear path from the living room to the kitchen.

He tilted his head in greeting, closing his eye with a sigh when John kissed the corner of his mouth.

“They were good,” he said, apropos of nothing.

“Were you?”

“Am I ever?” John grinned. "I suppose I didn't start an international incident." 

“You have time,” Duncan replied. “It’s only Wednesday.”

John grinned and turned to the bags, rummaging through them for a moment before taking out a bottle of Johnny Red and a wrapped parcel. With narrowed eyes, John beckoned Duncan to follow him up the stairs.

Duncan did, shaking his head, unable to keep a smile from his face.

He’d noticed this when he and John had seen each other when both were working too; once he was comfortable, John had a ridiculous sense of humor, a penchant for flirting and teasing, and really was as charming as would befit a contract killer. Where Duncan was more than happy to make the first move, John was very hard to resist when mischief took over.

Duncan didn’t bother resisting.

He hadn’t back then, either.

Following John, he indulged in the view. After the number of injuries he’d faced throughout the years, John had a very specific way of walking. It was almost a saunter, but slightly more wooden. There was a distinct way he tilted his hips as he moved, the motion beautifully exaggerated if his hands were in his pockets. He walked on the ball of his foot when he was barefoot or in socks, but set his heels down first if he wore his boots.

Duncan had watched him often.

Now, he set his hands into his own pockets as he followed three steps behind, lip between his teeth.

John set the parcel beneath his arm and swung himself through the doorway of their bedroom. Duncan heard him kick off his boots and walked in when John was tossing his socks into the hamper in the corner. Duncan leaned in the doorway, brow raised, as he watched him. John crooked his finger.

“Come on.” he coaxed.

“What are you planning?”

“Mischief,” John confirmed, delighted. He waited for Duncan to come nearer before pushing the bottle into his arms and directing him with a raised chin to sit on the end of the bed. “I found something interesting on my trip out.”

“Did you?” Duncan asked, amused, sitting as directed.

“Someone stopped us to ask about Bug,” John started, passing the parcel between his hands. “Lovely lady, asked where you were, what you did for a living.”

“You mentioned me?” Duncan smirked.

“You and Dog make quite an impact when you go into town,” John told him. “Even more so now, with Bug.”

“And?”

“Carpenter,” John reminded him with a grin. “Good with his hands.”

“And you?”

“Today?” John shrugged. “Artisan pencil specialist for CW.”

Duncan snorted, moving to open the bottle as he watched John pace in front of him.

“We happened to be stopped in front of the woollen goods store. Beautiful window display.”

Duncan nodded, bottle at his lips as he took a lazy drink. John worked his fingers against the tissue paper around his gift, and considered Duncan where he sat. Then, he ducked his head to open the present he bought and held it by the shoulders to show Duncan.

It was almost identical to the sweater Dog had chewed up months ago. Grey argyle with green lines in the pattern. The sleeves and hem weren’t stretched and worn like Duncan’s sweater had been, it was brand new. Duncan’s smile warmed his entire face.

“What did Dog think?” he asked. John tilted his head.

“He has his own argyle sweater,” he reminded him. “So does Bug.”

“She has two.” Duncan countered, taking another sip of whiskey when John swore and stepped closer. He took the bottle next and kept his eyes on Duncan as he drank.

“This,” John pressed the bottom of the bottle to Duncan’s chest, indicating the sweater he wore. “Will have to go, I’m afraid.”

“To Dog?”

“To the floor for now.”

Duncan lifted his chin. “And you?”

“What about me?”

“You too.”

John’s eyes narrowed at the challenge before he loosely folded the sweater and held it between his knees. He shouldered off his jacket, let it slip to his fingers and tossed it to Duncan’s feet, brow raised in amusement.

Duncan put the bottle between his thighs and pulled off his sweater, letting it drop on top of John’s jacket. When he sat up he took up the bottle again, letting it dangle between his knees from his hand. John let his eyes linger there, on the rough hands he intimately knew the feel of, on the thighs which he loved to part, burying his face between to draw _very_ pleasant sounds from Duncan.

“The shirt too, I think,” he said after a while. “For a better fit.”

Duncan hummed, waiting for John to act first, sitting back to enjoy the view when John bent, grasped the back of his shirt and tugged it over his head. Ink, stark against scarred skin, muscles honed from years of training and maintenance. How Duncan loved to see them tensing, trembling, sweat slicking them before they fell lax, the man completely undone by his own pleasure. He licked the taste of Johnny Red from his lips and held out the bottle for John when he stepped nearer.

John didn’t step back, though, as Duncan moved to similarly bare himself. He stood comfortably close, his knees between Duncan’s, soft fabric in his hand resting against his thigh. He didn’t drink, either, waiting for Duncan to sit back before taking a sip and bending down to kiss him then, sharing the taste.

He grinned when Duncan reached to set his palms against John’s waist, stepped nearer when Duncan broke the kiss to run his lips over John’s chest instead. He sucked his stomach in when Duncan moved lower to kiss John’s belly.

“Not yet,” he murmured, drawing his fingers through Duncan’s hair to push him back, stepping away just enough to pass him the soft wool. Duncan took it, a sound escaping him that John let go straight to his groin. He watched Duncan slip his arms into the sleeves, duck his head to pull the sweater over his shoulders and down his back.

When he straightened, John followed his fingers working the wool down over his furred chest, over his stomach. John swallowed quietly, lips parting just enough for a sigh to escape as he looked over Duncan before him. That sweater had always suited him. This one looked like it had been painted onto his skin.

 _God_ , he wanted him.

“So?” Duncan asked, smile tilting crooked on his face.

“Fuck.” John told him, succinctly.

Duncan’s smile spread into a grin, bright and warm. “I suppose you’d better, then.”

John swallowed again, casting his eyes to the door before deciding it would be best to close it after all. Nothing worse than to be interrupted by furry creatures adamant to share their space when they were close. If he hadn’t seen Bug run off towards the laundry not moments before he would have checked under the bed for her, too. One time had been quite enough to teach him to be wary.

As he turned, he set the bottle by the door. Quick fingers worked free his belt and casually dropped that next, two steps away. His jeans he gave a comfortable shove at to ease them down his legs, and stepped out of them soon after. His underwear, Duncan divested him of when John stood in front of him again, groaning quietly as John caught a hand against his jaw to stop him leaning in.

“Stay,” John told him. “Just as you are.”

Duncan swore quietly but didn’t move, instead he followed the graceful movement of John sinking to his knees in front of him, set his legs wider in welcome, and dropped his head back when John leaned in to nuzzle between his thighs.

Sometimes, it really was worth letting control go for a few hours.

John made quick work of Duncan’s button and fly, and didn’t bother to tease through the fabric before pulling his underwear aside and taking Duncan into his mouth. This, he very much enjoyed. His tongue had always been clever. He knew very well how to use it to bring people to incoherence; Helen had volunteered to do the dishes if it meant oral sex. Duncan had started a similar pattern of behaviour, which amused John to no end.

He was more than happy to oblige.

Taking him deeper, now, John wrapped an arm under Duncan’s knee and pressed to his thigh, holding him close, warm, against him. He moaned when he felt Duncan’s fingers in his hair, scraping softly against his scalp, twisting the strands gently, grasping them and _tugging_.

Duncan, for his part, whispered profanity, worship, pleas into the room before slowly laying back into the bed and bringing a leg up to rest his heel on the bed. John moved with him, sitting closer and up higher to keep Duncan between his lips as he encouraged his legs to spread wider, as he slipped a hand beneath the sweater he wore to spread his fingers against Duncan’s taut stomach, leaving marks that paled then reddened with his nails.

He moved his hand to splay against Duncan’s back when he arched.

John kept sucking, his own body vibrating with need from the way Duncan’s breath was hitching, from how his hands desperately sought John’s hair, his shoulders, from the taste, the smell of him -

With a groan, John pressed his forehead to Duncan’s stomach, catching his breath as he dropped a hand between his own legs to stroke himself, eyes half-closed in pleasure. He pushed up to stand, straddling Duncan on the bed and bending to kiss him before the other could sit up, protest, do anything at all but reach for John and hold him close.

They rubbed together, mouths catching between panted breaths, grins wide enough to make proper kisses difficult. Hands sought through hair, over bare skin, over wool and denim. Duncan set his other foot to the bed and shoved back, bringing them higher up, closer to the pillows. When John pulled away, just far enough to stretch over Duncan to reach the second bedside table drawer, Duncan marked the seconds he was kept waiting with nips against exposed skin, deeper presses of lips and tongue to certain spots he knew brought John to a mess of shivers. He wrapped a hand around John’s cock and stroked him, drawing his teeth over skittering pulse when John moaned, stilling for a moment from his search to just relish in the sensation.

 _Yes. God. More_.

John hurriedly tossed the small bottle he’d been seeking to the bed before setting both hands to Duncan’s face and kissing him. He rested his knees wider, balancing instead of rubbing down, trembling from the effort of it, from the sheer sensation of Duncan’s hands on him. For a few moments he indulged in it, pressing his forehead to Duncan’s, arching his back to feel Duncan hold him tighter, sharing hot breath between them.

“Come on,” Duncan murmured, the tendons in his neck tensing as he gritted his teeth and drew John down against him, one hand against the back of his neck, the other letting him go to spread over his stomach. John kissed his throat, his collarbone through the sweater, and set both hands to his chest as he sat up; as much to hold Duncan down as to keep himself upright. He was too damn close. Some days just being near Duncan drove him absolutely mad.

But like this, fully dressed when John was bare, in clothes that fit him as though they had been made for him, in their home, on _their bed_ -

“Goddammit,” John whispered, flicking his hair from his face before he reached for the lube, slicking up two fingers. He tossed the thing again, within reach but not close enough to roll onto, and pushed up on his knees. He kept one hand on Duncan’s chest, bending low enough to kiss his jaw, beneath it, back up to his lips, as his other worked himself open. It was a quick thing, not rough but certainly not time-consuming. Had he the patience, John would put on a damned show. 

But he didn’t.

And he needn’t.

Duncan’s hands were seeking over every inch of John they could reach, over his back and down over the curve of his ass, touching against John’s hand, slipping lower to grip his thighs and spread him. They were both desperate for it now, hungry as the first time they’d done this, just as pleased with how it felt, just as turned on by the other.

John slipped his hand free and moved to stroke Duncan with it, spreading the slick over him. He laughed, cursing, as Duncan shoved against him, upended him to the bed and knelt over John instead. He opened his mouth to the kiss that devoured him, just as needy for it. He dropped a hand to slide beneath Duncan’s waistband as he lined up, fingers spreading and cupping the warm flesh there. As Duncan pushed in, John groaned, turning his head aside to pant hot air against the sheets, grinning when Duncan set his teeth against a favourite spot of his to bruise.

They didn’t have a rhythm, even at the start. They moved because they had to, because _not_ moving wasn’t an option, because both wanted to be as close to the other as humanly possible, against the other, within the other.

John drew parallel marks down Duncan’s back beneath the sweater, grasped the fabric with fumbling fingers, stretched it, uncaring, when his grip tensed, electrified by pleasure. He caught Duncan’s lip between his teeth, tugged his hair, shivered when Duncan promised him, in several languages, that he would feel this for days.

He would.

He was going to make absolute certain of it.

John moaned at the juxtaposition of Duncan’s hands soft against his face and the thorough fucking he was getting. He moaned when Duncan caught his leg and hooked an elbow beneath his knee and held him wider, the new angle sending stars behind his eyes. He moaned when he could do nothing more than curl a fist in the sheets and hold the fuck on as he came, hot and slippery between them.

Duncan turned John’s face aside with a rough kiss, pushing hard into him, again and again, before he stilled, body tense and trembling. John wasn’t sure if he made a sound, then, or Duncan did. It honestly didn’t matter, it felt so fucking good.

They were swallowing air like drowning men, turning to lie on their sides, face to face, as they came back to themselves.

“John,”

“Mmm?”

“You’ve made a mess of me.”

John grinned, opening sleepy eyes to regard Duncan before him, flushed and dozy, still fully dressed. His eyes lingered on the smeared mess against the wool, lips unable to move anywhere but into a wider smile.

“Needed to welcome it home properly,” John mumbled. “Much safer than a trial by fire.”

Duncan snorted, wrapping an arm beneath John’s and bringing him nearer. They were foolish, almost irrational together sometimes, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Five years to make up for, at the very least, after all.

“All this over a sweater,” he lamented, tone low in mock-upset as John shook his head.

“Not just a sweater,” he replied.

Home. Permanence. Possibility.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You smell like cinnamon,” he mumbled, nuzzling against Duncan’s shirt. He accepted the heavy hand in his hair, the gentle massage rough fingers drew against his scalp. Duncan didn’t say anything for a long time, and John didn’t either, before he sighed and set his chin to Duncan’s chest, brows furrowed. “And something else. Cinnamon and something else.”_
> 
> Sweet domestic baking bliss. SFW

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested by the lovely [hannibalsimago](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannibalsimago/pseuds/Hannibalsimago) who asked for Duncan to make nommy things! I'll link the recipes/descriptions of all the dishes at the bottom of the chapter. This made me ridiculously hungry, writing.

John had been brooding for a few days.

It happened about as often as Duncan falling to darker moods; there and then gone. Usually without any violence involved, and certainly not deliberately directed at each other.

Both dogs stuck to him like glue; following at John’s heels, dozing in the doorway of the bathroom if he locked them out to take a shower. He found it as annoying as he did endearing, and would occasionally hand Bug to Duncan with a pointed ‘ _no_ ’ to the little dog to not follow him around anymore, pawing at his knees for him to pick her up.

She followed anyway.

He always picked her up.

It came to a head one evening when John loped down the stairs and moved to the living room, deliberately dropping himself into the couch on top of Duncan with a rough puff of air and a groan.

“You smell like cinnamon,” he mumbled, nuzzling against Duncan’s shirt. He accepted the heavy hand in his hair, the gentle massage rough fingers drew against his scalp. Duncan didn’t say anything for a long time, and John didn’t either, before he sighed and set his chin to Duncan’s chest, brows furrowed. “And something else. Cinnamon and something else.”

“Poppy seeds,” Duncan offered quietly, “maybe rum,” he smiled when John narrowed his eyes at him. They’d spent most of the day apart; John upstairs with his face alternating between being stuck in a book or the pillow, Duncan downstairs comfortably blanketed by Dog before the animal had stretched lazily and waddled out the half-open door towards the garden not half an hour before. Then he’d gotten up for a while. And now they were here.

Duncan accepted the deep sigh as the sign of affection he knew John meant it as.

“I thought I’d bake something,” Duncan added, watching John’s brows furrow further before relaxing a little, intrigued.

“Oh?”

“Hungered for Eastern European pastries, for some reason,” Duncan continued, amused. John snorted.

“You’ve not started a Napoleon tort have you?”

“And its thirty-two layers? Not this evening, no,” Duncan grinned. John turned his cheek against his chest again. He hummed when stroked down his back. “Besides, neither cinnamon nor poppy seeds in that.”

“ _Bulochki s makom_ then,” John replied, pleased to feel the warm vibration of Duncan’s consideration against his ear.

“Warmer,” he replied. “Think bigger.”

“ _Shikker babka_ ,” John suggested with a laugh, folding an arm over Duncan’s chest when he rested his head against it next, brows up. He smiled wider when Duncan confirmed with a slow blink and another hum. “You’re kidding.”

“I thought you might like something familiar.”

John closed his eyes and sighed again, moving his free hand to find Duncan’s to slip their fingers together. He’d never told Duncan his history, and Duncan hadn’t been forthcoming with his, but both of them had spent enough time in Eastern Europe, both spoke some of the languages, and they had met several times in Minsk, Kiev, and their outskirts on separate jobs to fuck in nondiscrept motel rooms that it was an easy assumtion to make that it felt like home. Many places had been, for a time.

“That sounds like heaven actually,” John said after a while, opening his eyes again and tilting his head to rest against Duncan’s hand when he cupped his cheek. “Need some help?”

“Just an audience.” Duncan said, nose wrinkling in pleasure as he smiled, before ducking his head to kiss John’s forehead. “Up. The dough should have rested enough by now.”

“Been planning this for a while,” John commented, pushing himself to get up, tugging Duncan after him by their joined hands.

“Planning while Dog snored on me,” Duncan confirmed, “making since he let me up.”

In the kitchen stood three bowls, one covered, two not, and the entire place smelled like home. Dark chocolate, spicy cinnamon, the earthy smell of ground poppy seeds, and the slight tang of alcohol, and surrounding all that the welcoming smell of dough. John pushed his nose against Duncan’s temple and breathed him in before letting him go.

“Where can I sit so I don’t bother you?”

“Anywhere,” Duncan said, pushing his sleeves up his arms as he took up the towel from the largest bowl and revealed the swollen ball of dough. Careful fingers pushed it down a little, pried it from the oiled ceramic sides, before lifting it free to the counter beside.

John kept the sink between them but hoisted himself up on the counter too, close enough to watch without being in the way. It had been a long time since he’d seen _shikker babka_ made by hand. He’d eaten it often enough, very much enjoyed every variation he’d ever tried, but he hadn’t seen one made in front of him since very, very early childhood. It tugged at something within him, a hook snared but not tearing against him, and John swallowed.

Watching Duncan work the dough was at once blissfully domestic and entirely too obscene. His fingers folded the dough, heels of his hands kneading it gently into shape. He worked slowly, no rush to get this finished, no pressure for it to be perfect; reaching to dust flour over the counter before turning the dough and kneading it again, working the flour into it with practiced ease. John’s eyes hooded, meditating on the motions.

“You know,” Duncan said after a while, quiet enough that it might as well have been to himself, were John not close enough to hear. “In some parts of Ukraine, a _babka_ is made from pasta, and fried in a pan.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever tried that,” John admitted, leaning back against the cabinets, hands loosely folded in his lap.

“When savory, the pasta is mixed with fried onion and lard. _Skvarky_ , if it isn’t a Jewish recipe.” Duncan tugged some of the dough from the main ball and set to working on that next, reaching for a rolling pin and dusting that with flour to stop it sticking. “When sweet, it’s filled with apples. Cherries. Rum-soaked raisins.”

John watched Duncan pat the dough out into a rectangle before taking the pin to it, putting just enough pressure to the wood to stretch it, not tear it. The motions, Duncan’s voice, were almost lulling him to sleep. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so comfortable with someone to just let go like that. With Helen, perhaps, when they’d vacationed on the beach, staying mostly in the cabin when it rained the entire weekend. Perhaps. He was certain he hadn’t felt so safe as he did now, even then.

“Where did you have it?”

“A friend made me one,” Duncan replied, dusting his hands over the sink before reaching for one of the other bowls, stirring the mixture within with a spoon as he spoke. “Her grandmother passed the recipe on, and she treated me to it.”

John hummed, imagining Duncan with enough time to relax and eat something, something as special as a family recipe. Jealousy didn’t tug at John so much as a sweet nostalgia on Duncan’s behalf. That was then, this was now.

“Sweet?” he asked, “or savory?”

“Savory,” Duncan replied, voice dropping to a pleased hum as he remembered. “Absolutely delicious. Absolutely awful for the figure.”

John snorted, catching Duncan’s teasing grin before shaking his head. He watched as Duncan spread the chocolate, cinnamon and poppy seed mixture over the dough, watched him reach for the other bowl and squeeze rum from a handful of raisins before scattering them over it. Absently, Duncan brought his fingers to his lips to lick them clean and John made a sound in his throat.

Deliberately, Duncan didn’t share, enjoying the attention as he savored the sting of alcohol against his tongue, sucking his thumb clean last and watching John’s response.

“I’d like to try it I think,” John said, turning his head against the cabinet behind him and watching Duncan through narrowed eyes. “About time I got fat.” He set a socked foot against the counter and wrapped his arm around his knee as he watched Duncan rinse his hands before rolling the dough into a long tube.

“It would take a lot of _babka_ to get you fat, I think,” Duncan commented.

“I’ve got time. And now I know you bake.”

It was lovely, this domestic scene where neither had to act like anyone else, pretend to be anyone else, or keep up appearances of strength and endurance. John kept his gaze in the middle distance as Duncan reached for more dough and started the process again.

Pat. Stretch. Fill. Roll. Set.

After he finished, he held his fingers out for John to lick clean, this time. When he leaned in to kiss him, John could taste the same tangy sweetness on Duncan’s tongue and relished it.

“You’re making enough for an army,” he mumbled, nuzzling Duncan before he moved away again, starting on a third.

“It won’t last as long as you think,” Duncan lamented. “I expect half to be eaten by breakfast.”

“Is that a guess or a challenge?”

Duncan sent him a look without answering.

In the end, Duncan made four of the things. John didn’t comment as he slit the top of each, plaited them together into a huge doughy mess. He watched Duncan pinch the ends together to seal them, watched him cover the tray with another damp towel and wipe down the counter.

And then he slunk from the counter, cat-silent as his feet touched the floor, and wrapped his arms around Duncan from behind, pressing his forehead to his spine. Silent gratitude, warm pleasure in something so simple as a home-baked treat.

“You’d think I wouldn’t miss it so much.” John said.

“Work?”

“Mmm.”

“If it’s all you’ve done for most of your life, there’s little else to miss,” Duncan suggested, covering John’s hands with his own as he leaned back against him. John supposed there was truth in it. There had been nothing else in his life except work for nearly thirty years. Dalliances, short trips, new houses, Duncan, Helen…

“I missed you,” John told him honestly. “When we’d go several months without being in the same vicinity for work.”

Duncan smiled, closing his eyes and letting his head rest back against John’s shoulder.

“I would never have guessed.”

“Shut up.”

“The Continental would send me reminders that I was due for a stay,” Duncan added. “Once every few months. I suppose I was there often enough that they started offering me discounts on services.”

“Seamstress?”

“Mmm.”

“No, that was me,” John replied, grinning. “You needed a new suit. Or twelve.”

“No wonder they started housing me on the seventh floor,” Duncan sighed. “You weren’t exactly making it a secret.”

“Us?”

“Us.”

“I doubt anyone would have braved bringing it up if I’m honest.”

“No,” Duncan agreed, turning in John’s hold to face him, pressing their foreheads together. “Would be bad for business if they did.”

“Staff knew from the first time, anyway,” John told him, grinning. “We sent our suits down together.”

Duncan hummed, pleased, at that particular memory, and reached to tilt John’s chin up to kiss him. He had missed him, too, once they’d made a habit of meeting each other. There was something about it, first the illicit sneaking, the thrill of that alone. Then the fact that they could meet anywhere at any time and do anything they wanted. Then the fact that he thought of John when he wasn’t seeing him.

That was telling.

He’d thought of him even when he’d heard of John leaving the game, getting married, living a normal life.

He’d thought of him while he enjoyed his own dalliances.

“You know that has to rest for two hours before I can bake it,” Duncan told him, turning John’s head aside with a lazy kiss to his cheek.

“Don’t know if we have the stamina for two hours,” John replied, hooking his thumbs into Duncan’s belt buckles and slipping his hands into his pockets. “We’re getting on in years.”

“I don’t know,” Duncan countered. “You’re pretty fit.”

John snorted, catching Duncan’s lips to kiss him again, rubbing lazily up against him as he did. It was warm, lazy, drowsy here in the kitchen. Dog was still outside enjoying what was left of the day and Bug…

Bug was scratching at John’s leg to be picked up. He laughed despite himself, pressing a groan to Duncan’s neck before peeling from him to duck and hoist the little dog beneath his arm.

“Menace,” he told her fondly. “Professional cock-block.”

“Love Bug,” Duncan countered, ruffling the tiny dog’s fur as she grinned at them, tail whacking softly against John’s side. “I suppose we’d better walk them.”

“Oh?”

“Be responsible, proper dog owners,” he continued, tone slow, lazy, as he scratched behind Bug’s ears and John raised a brow at him.

“Or we could let them tire themselves out chasing the squirrels in the yard,” John suggested, amused. “Allow them to hone their killer wolfish instincts. Return mentally to being powerful, frightening proto-dogs.”

“I suppose that would be more responsible,” Duncan agreed, taking Bug from John and holding her in front of him until tiny paws pressed to his cheeks. “Let them be the predators they are.”

He set Bug to the ground, watching her sit expectantly even as he pointed to the door for her to go. John snorted, tucking a kiss against Duncan’s jaw before pulling away and grabbing up the little beast.

“Outside,” he told her quietly, scratching softly against her fluffy chest. “Go chase your brother. Kill some squirrels. Live your life.”

He kissed the top of her head before setting her to the grass outside, watching her shake herself before trotting off towards Dog, who lay under one of the trees. He closed the door behind her without a hint of remorse.

He figured he would push himself for two hours before being treated to copious amounts of drunken pastry. After all, Duncan thought he was pretty fit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Shikker Babka](https://www.thespruceeats.com/drunken-chocolate-babka-4155159) (Drunken babka)  
> [Bulochki s makom](https://thebravelittlebaker.wordpress.com/2013/12/06/bulochki-s-makom-russian-poppy-seed-rolls/) (Buns with poppy-seed filling)  
> [Napolyon Tort](https://www.thespruceeats.com/russian-napoleon-cake-napolyeon-tort-recipe-1137297) (Napoleon Cake)
> 
>  _Skvarky_ are basically fried pork rinds; my grandpa used to be obsessed with these and add them to everything.
> 
> The pasta babkas I mentioned I couldn't find a recipe for online that's anything like my family's, but if you're curious I'll send it to you!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Don’t bring out the other dog, I ain’t going nowhere.”_
> 
> _“Oh, you are,” John told him, looking up again. “Either jail or the morgue, but which is up to you.”_
> 
> _“Oh fuck,” Sam groaned. “Are you going to kill me?”_
> 
> _“If you choose the morgue,” Duncan reasoned._
> 
> SFW, pure unadulterated crack, this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anon on Tumblr asked what would happen if someone were to break into John and Duncan's house, given they're... well. Them. I immediately imagined this being a hilarious situation rather than a dangerous one. Hope you like it!

It was Bug that alerted John to the fact that something wasn’t right. It grew louder, the barking, more insistent, desperate, and John felt his heart clench in all-too-familiar panic. He thought of the innocent yapping of Daisy moments before -

No.

He scrambled from bed, sought for the knife he kept under the table and cursed when it wasn’t there.

Duncan must’ve gotten it first; he wasn’t in the bedroom. 

He moved to the bathroom next, finding the switchblade in the toilet tank. He had to force his hands to stop shaking as Bug stopped barking downstairs.

He hoped - he _hoped_ \- it was because Duncan had caught her up and moved her somewhere safe. He hoped it was because she’d seen a squirrel outside. He hoped that wherever Dog was he wasn’t in danger.

He thought of Daisy.

From downstairs came a groan, a thump of something heavy hitting the kitchen counter and silence. John flicked the blade, made his way to the stairs and descended silently. There was no light on anywhere, not outside where there should have been a motion sensor by the front door, not in the kitchen where Duncan would have turned it on had he simply gone to get a glass of water.

John pressed himself against the wall of the corridor, working the blade between his fingers as he listened. He heard the barest hitch of breathing, the scratching of paws against a door, desperate whining, the soft pad of footsteps coming closer, closer -

“Jesus,” John cursed, flicking the blade shut and pressing his free hand to his eyes as Duncan rounded the corner and nearly walked into him. “What the fuck, Duncan?”

Duncan’s pupil was blown, wide to take in as much detail as he could in the darkness. He held John’s blade, the one he kept under his bedside table, and he quickly folded it blade-down his arm to keep it from causing harm.

“We have a problem,” was all Duncan said, gesturing with a jerking motion back towards the kitchen and turning to have John follow him. He did.

Duncan flicked on the light as he entered, and John squinted until his eyes adjusted to the brightness. The window above the sink was smashed in, inexpertly, and whoever had done it had cut themselves climbing in. Some blood was smeared against the counter, glass littered the floor, a short trail that led to a collapsed heap of person unconscious on the floor.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” John muttered, drawing a hand over his face to rub the sleep from his eyes.

“He disabled the motion sensor,” Duncan said, tossing his knife to the counter, where it skidded and landed in the sink. “Broke in. Woke the dog.”

“Where is the dog?” John asked, flicking his own blade open for want of something to do with his hands. He flicked it closed again just as quickly, a nervous motion.

Duncan ducked to open up one of the cupboards, catching Bug before she could land in the glass all over the floor. He stood up with a sigh, leaning against the counter as he kept Bug from jumping down.

“And Dog?” John asked. Duncan raised his chin, gesturing upstairs.

“Under the bed, if he’s still there. He immediately hid when Bug woke me up.”

John snorted, shaking his head. He continued to flick the switchblade open and shut, an entirely unconscious motion, as he regarded their intruder. There was no blood that he could see beyond where the idiot had cut himself climbing in. He’d been extraordinarily lucky that it was Duncan who had met him downstairs, not John. Then again...

“I assume he’s still alive?” John asked, glancing up at his partner. Duncan shrugged.

“He was when I knocked him out.”

John hummed, before turning on his heel and heading to the corridor, where he shoved bare feet into a pair of his boots and grabbed a pair of Duncan’s to bring to him. The last thing they needed was to cut themselves in their own kitchen. He deliberately set the switchblade aside and shoved his hands under his arms instead.

“Now what?”

Duncan puffed out his cheeks, held his breath, before exhaling and shrugging. “I have no idea, honestly.”

John had had people break into his house before. It never ended well for them. Jimmy was a good guy - John hoped he was doing well; enjoying a much calmer graveyard shift now that John had moved. He’d write them off as noise complaints, if John recalled correctly. Good man. Then John would call Charlie.

“Have you ever uh,” John pursed his lips, considered his words, “had a house-break end with the perpetrator leaving?”

“Nope.”

“Neither.”

“Hmm.” Duncan bent to work his boots on while still keeping Bug pressed against his side. When he straightened he handed the little dog over to John. John absently stroked against her chest, praising her her quick response, her loud scary barking. He kissed the top of her head and stepped over the unconscious man in their kitchen to stand at Duncan’s side.

“I guess we can’t kill him.”

“We shouldn’t,” Duncan agreed, both of them tilting their heads to consider the man regardless. “Should we?”

\--

When the man woke, it was with a start and a groan. He squirmed around, trying to move his arms and finding them secured at his sides and a little behind him. He was still in the kitchen he’d broken into, but the light was on this time. The chair he was tied to didn’t budge when he tried to shove against it, tried to rock himself free. His head ached, his mouth was dry, and his vision was blurry. He made another sound, perhaps curious, perhaps seeking, and heard footsteps behind him.

“Hi,” The newcomer was taller than the intruder, but not the man he’d seen when he’d first broken in. Crap. There were two of them. He’d forgotten there’d be two of them. “I’m John.”

The other swallowed, letting his eyes skim over the figure - John - and take him in. He was dressed head to toe on black; black jeans, black pullover, a black beanie over hair that stuck out from the bottom of it. And gloves, too, fucking leather gloves. And one hand was wrapped around a thick rope, at the end of which -

“Oh, fuck me,” he guy shoved his feet to the floor, trying to push back away from the pitbull.

“Not on the cards, but that can be arranged, I suppose.”

This man, he recognized. At least from the second he’d had to see him before he’d been knocked on his ass with… something. He, too, was dressed in black, but an eye patch completed the outfit, which the intruder thought was a bit much.

“No thanks,” he managed after a moment, eyeing the guy warily. “Eye-patch guy.”

Duncan clicked his tongue, stepping around him to stand by John, hands in his pockets. “Your loss.”

“Really is,” John mumbled, tugging Dog a little closer just so the guy would look at him again. “And you are? Besides trespassing.”

“Uh,” the guy eyed Dog again, misreading his discomfort - the lip-licking, yawning, shifting weight - for barely-concealed aggression. “Sam?”

“Sam.” John nodded. “And why are you in our house, Sam?”

Sam considered the two of them, the dog between them, and swallowed. “Made a wrong turn?”

“You know,” Duncan said, taking his hands from his pockets and picking up the switchblade John had left on the counter. “Lying really isn’t a good idea.” he flicked it open, turned his wrist, worked it shut, over and over, a hypnotic display. Sam watched transfixed before turning his eyes to the dog at John’s feet again.

“I was breaking in,” he said after a moment.

“You were trying to break in,” John corrected him. “You did a piss-poor job of it. Why the kitchen window?” He asked, gesturing unnecessarily to the mess neither he nor Duncan had cleaned up. “It’s an awkward height, over a sink, rather than a flat surface to land on. You broke the glass irregularly, cut yourself.”

“You could have - and should have - gone through the laundry,” Duncan added. “Much easier access, a door with two panes of glass. Could have pushed the bottom one out and crawled through without anyone the wiser.”

Sam looked between them, brows furrowing in confusion. What the fuck was going on?

“What do they even teach them these days?” John sighed, stepping closer and setting one knee beside Dog to be on Sam’s eye level. “So you were trying to break in. Why?”

“Uh,” Sam licked his lips again. “Someone in town mentioned two old fags living out in the middle of nowhere. Retired carpenter and librarian or whatever. Figured it was easy pickings.”

John groaned, rubbing his eyes. “Still. Still _librarian_ , Duncan.” He mumbled, turning to look at Duncan, who merely shrugged, flicking the blade shut again. Beside John, Dog whined quietly and shifted on his feet. Sam’s eyes immediately went to him.

“Wouldn’t worry about him,” Duncan said, brows up when Sam glanced at him. “He hid under the bed when you broke in. I’d worry about the other one.”

“There’s another one?” Sam’s voice broke a little and he swallowed hard, shaking his head. “Don’t bring out the other one, I ain’t going nowhere.”

“Oh, you are,” John told him, looking up again. “Either jail or the morgue, but which is up to you.”

“Oh fuck,” Sam groaned. “Are you going to kill me?”

“If you choose the morgue,” Duncan reasoned. He watched Sam’s eyes close, his bottom lip tremble as though he were about to cry. It was somewhat pathetic, really. He glanced at John, who looked a moment away from losing his composure and giggling into Dog’s neck, and pursed his own lips to keep from smiling.

“N-no, nah, not the morgue, just jail. Jail’s good. Jail’s fine.”

John looked up at the boy again - and he was, really, compared to the two of them - and tilted his head.

“But will you learn your lesson in jail, I wonder,” John considered, watching Sam nod his head like one of those desktop toys, over and over. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

John blinked. Sam swallowed.

“Twenty-four.”

“Might get a few years then,” John said, sitting back on his heel and dropping a hand to Dog’s head to scratch behind his ears. “Breaking and entering, causing bodily harm -”

“I didn’t -”

“He didn’t have time to,” Duncan pointed out with a shrug.

“I could punch you on his behalf if you like, make it a plausible story,” John replied, sending Duncan a thin smile, watching the way Duncan’s eye sparkled with the laughter he didn’t let through. He winked, with the eye turned away from Sam, before looking back at the boy.

“Breaking and entering,” he repeated, “causing bodily harm, discrimination -”

“What?”

“What was it you heard? Two old fags living in the middle of nowhere?” John asked him.

“Easy pickings,” Duncan reminded him, nodding.

“Oh, shit, no, no it wasn’t coz you’re - coz you -” Sam chewed his lip, cheeks darkening. Both Duncan and John watched him barely able to keep smiles from their faces.

“Is it because we’re old?” Duncan asked instead, flipping his blade closed and crossing his arms. He watched the emotions play over Sam’s face before he nodded, resigned. Here, John couldn’t help himself, he stood up, turning away as though offended, in reality shoving a fist into his mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Duncan cast him a look before returning his gaze to Sam.

“Hund,” he said, clicking his tongue when Dog looked up at him. “Watch him.”

Sam cursed again, pulling his feet up under the chair as though Dog were about to chew them off. When certain that Dog wouldn’t go anywhere - Duncan was sure Sam wasn’t about to - he turned as John had.

“ _Now what?_ ” He asked, Russian rolling familiar from his tongue as he looked at his partner, John’s cheeks flushed with the effort it was taking not to laugh. When he looked at Duncan his eyes were bright.

“ _I think he’s about to shit himself,_ ” John admitted, taking a deep breath to gather his composure. “ _Kid has no idea what he’s doing._ ”

“ _Should probably call the police, then,_ ” Duncan replied, turning his tone lower, making the already harsh language sound absolutely brutal to the boy behind them. John hummed, flexing his hands in his gloves. The leather creaked and Sam made a helpless noise. John closed his eyes and took another breath, fighting the smile from his face.

“ _I suppose you’d better,_ ” he said. “ _Eye-patch guy._ ”

“ _Oh, fuck off,_ ” Duncan grinned, allowing the smile to remain on his face as he turned back to Sam, offering him a seemingly helpless shrug as though to say _sorry kid, he’s in charge here_ and walking past him and out of the kitchen.

Sam made another little sound as John turned to him and shifted in his seat. “Please don’t kill me.” he repeated. John sighed, looking down at his hands. He let the silence between them grow pregnant before looking up at the boy again.

“You’ll turn yourself in?”

“Yeah - yes. Fuck, I’ll admit to the bodily harm and whatever. Anything.” 

“And you won’t pull this bullshit again?”

Sam’s head shook back and forth so hard John was afraid he’d pull a muscle. He nodded, watching relief wash over Sam’s face, and then he whistled, bringing Dog to his heels and listening to the sound of tiny feet scurrying over hard floors upstairs. Sam watched with wide eyes as John’s eyes followed the path of the “other dog” he couldn’t see. He closed his eyes, panic overtaking him, just imagining what could be more frightening, more dangerous than the pitbull.

“Sam.”

“Huh?”

“Open your eyes, kid,” John said, waiting for him to obey, it took a minute. When Sam looked at him, John gestured to his feet.

Sam swallowed, licked his lips, shook his head, but eventually looked down to see -

“What the fuck?”

“He wasn’t kidding about the other dog,” John told him. “She’ll go right for the balls. I’d sit still if I were you.”

Sam looked at him, bewildered, as between John’s shoes Bug drew her lips back and growled.

“O-okay. Sure. Gonna sit real still.”

\--

It took the local officers twice as long to take the terrified kid away, because Bug and Dog both demanded attention and wouldn’t leave the men alone. Duncan gave a statement, since the house was in his name, and made it clear he didn’t want to press charges.

“I doubt he’ll do it again,” Duncan told the man taking his statement. “We’re all stupid when we’re young.”

“Are you sure?” the officer asked. “He’s old enough to know better.”

“He knows better.” Duncan assured him, smiling. “Give him a few days in a cell if you’ve the space. It’ll drive the message home.”

“If you’re sure,”

“Certain.” Duncan told him. He watched the boy being loaded into the back of the car, looking like he’d just won the lottery in being allowed to leave the house alive. He listened to John coaxing Bug away from the second officer who’d taken photos of the scene.

When the car drove away he shut the door and finally allowed himself to laugh, a quiet, pleased thing. In the kitchen he heard John do the same.

“I think I had way too much fun with that,” John admitted, grinning when Duncan rounded the corner to the kitchen. “So did you.”

“There was never a chance, when I was working, to play bad cop.” Duncan said, sitting down at the kitchen island, dropping his hand to let Bug lick his fingers. “It was rarely more than a shoot and don’t ask questions situation.”

“Ditto,” John leaned against the island, pulling his gloves off fingertip by fingertip. He let them drop to the countertop. “You’re kind of hot when you’re mean.”

“Was I mean?” Duncan asked, tilting his head to catch John’s eye.

“Brutal,” John confirmed, grinning. He set his hands flat and arched his back, stretching his shoulders with a groan. “I wouldn’t want to cross you.”

“Good,” Duncan replied, curling a hand against his cheek as he rested his elbow against the island. John hummed, leaning forward to kiss him, a chaste and soft thing.

“Good,” he agreed, nuzzling against him. “What time is it?”

“Somewhere past two.”

“Far too early,” John replied. “Time yet to sleep well and sleep in.”

“I suppose.”

“You’re going to,” John told him, smiling. Duncan hummed and shrugged, knowing he would. He leaned back far enough to bring his lips together in a sharp whistle, bringing both dogs running.

“Bed,” he told them, pointing upstairs. Dog won the race to the stairs; it took Bug a few seconds to gain traction beneath her paws on the tile. Duncan turned to John again, reaching to grasp the back of his neck gently. “Bed,” he told him next, and kissed him.

John hummed his agreement and led the way upstairs. They could fix the window tomorrow. It wasn’t like someone else was going to break in; not after Sam got released from his overnight hold and spread the word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got some ideas for chapters? [Hit me up!](https://suntosirius.tumblr.com/ask)  
> Like the story and want to help me make more? [Buy me a coffee.](https://ko-fi.com/waterthemuse)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song Arsonist's Lullaby by Hozier.
> 
> For Kate, who is as invested in this as I am.
> 
> There is now [A PLAYLIST](https://open.spotify.com/user/1276637629/playlist/5yCy2etz27n0Jpt3az906D?si=aCgq3VdyQn2sfHw7R6Xi6Q)
> 
> And [TIMESTAMPS](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19194127)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [All The Ashes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19194127) by [whiskeyandspite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite)




End file.
